CORRESPONDENCE. 
The Romans in Yorkshire. 
72 
Keighley, jth January, 1914. 
A sense of humour in a critic often detracts from the value of his 
criticisms. Though this may be debated, at any rate all will agree that 
humour leading to inaccurate statements is inadmissible. In The 
Naturalist for January (page 2) some remarks on my paper on the 
Harden Slag-heaps, etc., find place. (1) The writer says : “ \Ye quite 
agree that the arguments given in their favour are of a rather circular 
nature.” One and one argument alone is of such a nature, and that 
concerns only one detail of one part of one road. The critic’s remark is, 
therefore, misleading, to put it mildly. (2) Again, he says : “ But surely 
such words as ‘ possible ’ and ‘ probable ’ would not spoil the value of 
the papers.” He quotes two pieces of my article, and though those two 
words which alone he apparently approves of are not contained in them, 
it will be noticed that each is qualified. In fact I challenge him to bring 
forward a single debatable statement from that paper which is not 
qualified. His remarks on this head are again, to put it mildly, mis- 
leading. — Francis Yilly. 
The writer of the note referred to by Dr. Yilly professes to know 
something of Roman sites in Yorkshire. He also claims to be able to 
understand a paper on the subject and to give his views thereon without, 
‘ to put it mildly, misleading.’ That Dr. Yilly, who is one of the persons 
whose writing is criticised, may not quite see the ‘ humour ’ is not our 
fault. \Ye agree with him that ‘ humour leading to inaccurate statements 
is inadmissible,’ and as his ‘ inaccurate statements ’ are inadmissible, 
we must assume that he is serious, which is regrettable. Dr. Villy, in 
his paper, admits that some of his ‘ arguments are of a rather circular 
nature.’ The word ' rather ’ might have been omitted, and the opinion 
could then correctly apply to many of his others. To give merely one 
instance, on page 12 of his paper, he states : ‘ The stonework just de- 
scribed is built quite in the Roman style, and on several grounds we thus 
have distinct though perhaps not absolutely conclusive evidence that 
the Roman Road crossed Harden and Wilsden becks almost as the 
present road does.’ From this we might assume that there was a possi- 
bility of a doubt, but when we come to the illustration of the stonework 
in question, it is labelled, ‘ Kerbed edge (northern) of Roman Road.' 
There is no doubt in this description, which is unfortunate, as the absurdly 
small heap of badly-fitting and irregular rounded cobbles, as shown in the 
photograph, might be scores of things. It certainly is not convincing as a 
Roman road. What is apparently the foundation of an old peat stack, 
or something as easily explainable, is described and figured as ‘ Supposed 
Roman Road.’ Dr. Villy ’s description of these seven pieces of stone is 
as follows : 1 The stones are laid directly on the slope of the subsoil, 
which (though not really hard to dig) has not been levelled. This would 
be a very slovenly and insecure way of laying the foundation of a dry 
wall, whilst for a kerb it would be a slight advantage.’ The following 
sentence : ‘ Besides the point already alluded to beyond Keighley, this 
road has been recovered lately at Well Head on Glasburn Moor, whence 
its course seems to have been via Park Head and the Elslack Fort, Horton, 
and Paythorn, where it perhaps crossed the Ribble. But it has not yet 
been excavated satisfactorily beyond Well Head,’ may also be taken as 
a sample of his style. We do not wish in any way to deprecate the good 
work our Bradford friends are doing, but the arguments and photographs 
brought forward in their last Journal are by no means convincing, and 
our point is that a little more definite and reliable evidence should be 
produced before all these old trackways are dubbed ‘Roman.’ — E d.] 
Naturalist. 
