Other Memories, Old and New. By John Kerr, LL.D. (W.
Black- wood and Sons. 3s. 6d. net.)—Dr. Kerr here gives us a second instal- ment of reminiscences. He need not fear, we think, the common fate of continuations. Books of this kind are not easily compared; much depends on the mood and environment of the reader. But we may safely say that there are plenty of good things in this volume. Some of them, of course, are classics, as of the guest at a prolonged orgie who said that his host was dead, but " didna like to speak about it for fear of spoilin' gude company " ; but any one who has kept his eyes open for sixty-odd years must have many things to say that will be new. One quality Dr. Kerr certainly can claim, promptitude. He took charge of a school at fifteen,—and kept it for three years. Surely this was a greater achievement than the Black Prince winning the victory of Crecy at the same age. A few years later he seems to have had great difficulty in escaping the Chair of Natural Philosophy at St. Andrews. Now and then, of course, Dr. Kerr touches on serious subjects, and we have little fault to 'find with his opinions. But where he is speaking of Sunday customs, and concludes that " Sabbath observance is therefore a question of locality," he must mean that the details and forms, not the thing itself, may be properly so described. When the Nor- wegian fishermen suspend their work from 6 o'clock on Saturday to the same hour on Sunday they are following the oldest of Sabbath rules. It is a curious example, by the way, of how laws have to be accommodated to changing conditions. "From sunset to sunset " must be liberally interpreted in summer at the North Cape.
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