The Annals of a Border Club. By George Tancred. (T.
S. Small, Jedburgh.)—" The Borderers have long been noted," says the author of this book, perhaps quite unnecessarily, "for a clannish tenacity which they carry with them into every relation of life ;" and the Jed Forest Club, of which his volume gives the history, is one of the best proofs that could have been afforded of this "clannish tenacity." Naturally such a volume has been written, in the first instance, for members of the Club, and forms a very full history of their various families, such as the Kers, Ogilvies, Douglases, Pringles, Riddels, and Rutherfurds, that have played not unimportant parts in Scottish history. But it should also be found valuable by the general student of history, for it throws a great deal of light upon the Border region, and more particularly on Jedburgh in periods of early "storm and stress." Debtors would appear to have had even an easier time there than in London, at all events when they were confined in the local gaol. "It is told of a magistrate of the Royal burgh that he was once waited on by the gaoler, who told his honour that the door of the prison was off its hinges (in fact from old age they had given way), and that he did not know what was to be done. The magistrate himself was in doubt, but at length a happy idea struck him. He hastily desired the gaoler to get a harrow and set it up in the doorway, with the teeth turned to the inside, 'an' if that wad IIEV keep them in, the prisoners were na' worth the keepin' in.'"
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