Memorials of a Yorkshire Parish. By J. S. Fletcher. (J.
Lane. 7s. 6d. net.)--This history of Darrington, near Pontefract, on the Great North Road, shows how attractive a village chronicle may be made by a good writer who cares to take pains. Mr. Fletcher has used his native village to illustrate the course of English social history through the ages. He has many anecdotes to tell, for example, about that " notorious wretch " Nevinson the highwayman of Charles IL's day, or about Mr. Edward Robert Petra of Stapleton, whose racing stable was famous in the reign of George IV. In 1822 Petro had entered his horse Theodore for the St. Leger. The horse was so lame and out of sorts that the owner sold his book and all his changes to his friend Mikes for £200. John Jackson the jockey, who had been retained to ride Theodore, " burst into tears at being asked to mount such a crippled beast." One man laid a thousand pounds to a new walking-stick against the horse. However, Jackson rode him, and Theodore, after a good start, went ahead and won by four lengths. It was Petre's filly Matilda that won the St. Leger in 1827, beating John Gully's Mameluke, the Derby winner, on the post—a famous race described by Sir Francis Hastings Doyle in a well-known poem.
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