HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN MIDDLESEX.
Highways and Byways in Middlesex. By Walter Jerrold. (Macmillan and Co. 6s.)—Perhaps the "highways" occupy more space in proportion to their deserts than the "byways." Possibly this is inevitable ; anyhow, it has its compensations. No ono, for instance, will find fault with the length of the chapter—thirty-four pages, more than a twelfth of the whole book—which is given to Hampton Court, or to the twenty-six pages allotted to Harrow-on-the-Hill. The " byways," delightful as they are—all the more so because they are unexpected—do not lend themselves to description. Still, Mr. Jerrold now and then cuts his notices a little short. Hadley Common, for instance, might have had something more than the bare sentence : "The only scrap of the Chase now public property." The sentence, too, is erroneous. It is not "public property " ; it belongs to the free- holders of Hadley, having been allotted to them when the Chase was disforested. The other parishes so favoured sold their portions ; Hadley retained its share, greatly to the public advantage. It would certainly be impossible to find within any- thing like the same distance of London such another two hundred and forty acres of natural wood. But we will not grumble any more about this delightful book, made more attractive as it is by Mr. Hugh Thomson's fascinating pictures.
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