A CHILD'S MEMORY.
[TO THE EDITOR OF TEX "SPECTATOR')
Sin,—Writing on September 13th from a somewhat distant part of the Empire, I have before me a copy of the Spectator dated August 21st last, which contains several letters under the heading "Do Animals Reason ?" It occurs to me, Sir 7—although the connexion may not be very close—that if the thought processes of animals are interesting to your readers,
an incident showing something of the mystery of a child's memory may be told without altogether wasting space.
I am the Parliamentary- librarian for one of the new Provinces of the great Canadian West. In December last an official letter was sent me from one of the Departments which I never received. Pending the completion of the Parliament buildings and offices now in course of erection (at a cost of nearly two millions of dollars), the Government offices are scattered, but the Library and the Provincial Laboratory are in the same building. The doctor has a very bright little son of six, who sometimes plays about in the building and who is a friend of mine. Occasionally, if the Library is closed, letters will be left temporarily outside in the corridor. There is a book-stand in the corridor by the Library door. It has a space of an inch or more between it and the wa1L This morning (September 13th) I found my bright little friend poking a stick behind the bookstand along the floor. He said he was trying to get a letter belonging to me which he had put there. Asked how long ago, he thought a second or two, and replied: "About a week." I removed It strip of board which covered in the foot of the bookstand, and on the floor was the missing letter of December 22nd, another letter bearing the Hartford, Connecticut, post-mark of December 19th, and a newspaper in its wrapper. Nearly nine months had elapsed since the little chap had hidden them. Two or three points strike me as somewhat interesting for the student of child-life. The question why he should hide them at all, I suppose, admits of no answer but "Because he did." But it is singular that nine months should appear to him to be only "about a week." And, again, by what process of thought, or of revived memory, was he induced to try to recover in September such (to him) particularly uninteresting things as letters which he had hidden away in the previous
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