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DECEMBER 1902.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
515
dances, and so they are extra keen about it. sions as these are the half-forgotten memories of They've done no work for nearly a week, and miracle and morality playe dating from times they've been at their performances ever since when the stage was the book of the unlearned Sunday morning.'
, and religion was taught by activities of body as
well as of mind, so are the mysteries of the * But what is it? What do they do ?'
Hobson-Jobson' full of deepest meaning, . I don't know what it is, but I can tell you didactic and commemorative. what they do. For weeks they have been collecting every bit of colored paper, and rags, and
Indeed, we may go further. While Count tinsel, and wood, and cardboard, they could lay Gobinean, formerly Minister of France in Teheran hands on, and they've been rigging up fancy and Athens, and therefore well qualified to speak dresses for themselves and making models--sort
with authority in regard to Greece and Persia of pagoda things-and they've been carrying
alike, ranks this occasion with the Greek drama them about, and dancing and acting, these three
in its hold upon the life of the people, Matthew days. But to-niorrow is the great day, and Arnold finds what he considers a more fitting everything will have to give way to it. We shall parallel in the Passion play of Ober-Ammergau. get nothing done on board ship, and the docks
After this the article gives a rough description will have to be just given up to them. It is
of the ordinary performances at the Indian worth seeing, if you don't mind the noise and
Muharram as gone through by the vulgar, interthe dust.'
larded with quotations from old books as to their The next day, the 30th of April last, was one
meaning and origin, but she has not studied of those bright hot days which the early spring
her subject much and has not apparently ever sometimes borrows from summer, and which
heard of Sir Lewis Pelly or one Dr. Herklots. of late years she has paid back with such liberal
But she can nevertheless write in a good literary interest. On the chance of seeing a new play,
style, and so her half knowledge is permitted zet borrowed from a familiar novel, nor plagia
to grace many pages of such a periodical as the rised from the French, we were prepared to mind
Nineteenth century. A typical instance of the nothing, and to the docks we went.
almost contemptuous ignorance of things Indian
on the part of English literary personages. Oh, yes, I shall just have to look in at the
R. C. TEMPLE. docks,' said one in authority to our host, and I'll order your lunch; but couldn't you take the ladies to see the boats some other day? It is not fit for anyone this morning. It is the Hobson-Jobson,
UNLUCKY AND LUCKY CHILDREN, AND you know.'”
SOME BIRTH SUPERSTITIONS. Then follow 13 pages of Mazagine writing of One or two notes on the magical powers of the superior sort, in the most approved style, on the first-born child in India were given, ante, 2 subject of which the writer evidently knows p. 162, and a few more are now added. nothing personally, though she seems to think that she has made some discoveries concerning
The First-born. it worth placing before the public. Witness the following from p. 585 f.:
In the Panjab the first-born son of a wife is
peculiarly uncanny, especially subject to magical "The accident of a north-country upbring. influences and endowed with supernatural powers. ing suggested to the present writer some pos- On the one hand his hair is useful in witchcraft, sible analogy between the obvious, if not very and on the other its possession would give a intelligible, order of what we had seen and the wizard power over him. He himself possesses mumming plays of certain districts in Yorkshire considerable magic powers, for he can stop bail and elsewhere, the mysterious drama of Alexander by throwing a stone backwards from, or by and the King of Egypt' performed on Ohristmas cutting a bail-stone with a knife, and he can stay Eve, the morris dancing of New Year's Day, the a dust-storm by standing naked in front of it. merry-makings of Handsel Monday, and the He is also peculiarly subject to lightning, and is processions of Plough Monday, Shrove Tuesday, not allowed to go out on a rainy day. Snakes and May Day. The analogy, though accidental, also become torpid in his presence : (fuller notes is, in its degree, correct; for just as such occa on this or similar ideas would be welcome).
