The Peerage, Baronetage, Knightage, and Companionage of the British Empire.
By Edmund Lodge. (Kelly's Directories. 31s. 6d.) —This, the seventy-fifth edition, exhibits not a few changes and developments from the first issue, and is about as satisfactory a specimen of its class as could be wished. We observe that the type is noticeably good and clear. Coming out a little later than some of its compeers, it is able to record the changes of last December. We find "the Rt. Honble. John Burns" among the Privy Councillors, while the shower of honours amid which the Balfour Government disappeared is duly recorded.—The Oxford Year-Book and Directory (Swan Sonnenschein and Co., 5s. net) is a second edition of Part I. of the "Oxford and Cambridge Directory." The aim of the compiler is to give the names, degrees, and occupation of all living graduates. No restriction to those who appear on the College books is stated, or intended, if we understand the language of the preface. This being so, the task before the editor, who desires to make his list complete, is a very difficult one. The men who graduate but do not take Orders or go to the Bar are apt to elude the most careful research. We observe an error in the fifth item of 128a, "1854" for "1884."—The Cambridge Year-Book and Directory (same publishers) reproduces Part II. of the volume mentioned above.—Thont's Official Directory (Alex. Thom and Co., Dublin, 21s.) appears for the sixty- third time. This volume gives, as we have observed more than once, information which cannot be found elsewhere. Why do not Messrs. Kelly give us, for London, the highly interesting feature of the "valuations for poor-rate" ? Here we have to note a curious detail. The valuation lists for Dublin and suburbs have, we are told, been revised, and "it has been found desirable to include the fast growing districts of Graystones and Delgany." "Desirable" it may be, but it has not been done. We see a suggestive collocation in another paragraph of the preface,—" A Special Land Purchase Table" and "A Meteorological Table for Ireland," showing, among other things, the storms of the year. This table, by the way, is peculiarly interesting. In North Ireland the six stations given show an average rainfall of 32.68, the six in South Ireland 35.73. In the first division Blacksod Point, Mayo, heads the list with a fall of 47.84, and in the second Valencia, Kerry, with 53.76. We very much wish that we could have such a book about England as Thom's Directory is for Ireland.
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