The Sun.
London, England, 1866-04-26 00:00:00

ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY.

An ordinary meeting of this society was held wa
Tuesday evening—Mr. John Crawfurd in the
chair. The first paper was "On the British Super-
stitions relating to the Hare, the Goose, and the
Fowl," by Mr. John Thrupp, founded on the
narrative of Julius Casar. Mr. Thrupp explained
that the superstition of the Britons regarding those
animals did not approach to worshipping them, but
they objected to eat them. As the number of the
animals increased, however, and their value as ar-
ticles of food became appreciated, the superstitious
feeling gave place to commercial considera-
tions. Mr. Crawfurd made some remarks on
the subject, attributing the respect paid to the
animals mentioned to their comparative rarity. The
same feeling at the present day prevents the people
of this country from eating parrots ; and in Scot-
land no singing birds are eaten. The Scotch have
also a strong objection to eating eels, considering
them akin to snakes. He alluded to the introduc-
tion of fowls into Europe from the east, and of
turkeys from America. The former, he said,.were
not introduced into Europe till the third or fourth
century, and there was no mention in the Old Tes-
tament of a cock, and only once was it named in
the New Testament. Turkeys even now are very
rare in the East, and there are none whatever in
China. It was, indeed, on record that when Sir
John Malcolm was in the East Indies accounts were
brought to him of the appearance of a very strange
bird about 20 miles up the country, which the
naturalist of the mission and another gentleman
immediately set off to see, and on arriving at the
place they found that the extraordinary bird they
had gone so far to look at was only a common
turkey cock.

Mr. THOMAS WRIGHT read a paper "On the
Intercourse of the Romans with Ireland," in which
he took occasion to reply to some remarks in the
Anthropological Review on a previous statement of
his respecting the partial occupation of Ireland by
the Romans. Mr. Wright quoted a passage from
" Juvenal," to show that Agricola intended to in-
vade Ireland, and that he had calculated that it
would only require a single legion to conquer that
country. He alluded also to the discovery of a
number of silver Roman coins in Ireland, and to
the finding there of a bronze sword, and of a
medicine stamp, the latter being in the form of a
small metal seal. He said that several similar
stamps had been found in England, though none
had been discovered in Italy, and he contended that
the stamp and the coins clearly indicated that the
Romans had occupied the country. The fact that the
three principal Roman roads in Britain wer concen-
trated in North Wales at the nearest accessible point
to Ireland seemed also to show that there was much
communication with that country.
Mr. LUKE BURKE, as an Irishman, repudiated the
notion that his ancestors had been conquered by
the Romans. The traditions of the Irish noticed
that the people of Greece, of Africa, and of Spain
had visited Ireland, but there was no trace in those
traditions of the Romans, which there would haVe
been had they ever occupied the country. The
round towers he considered closely allied to some
Cyclopean structures in Greece.
In reply to a remark by Mr. CRAWFURD— that St.
Patrick, who is said to have converted the Irish to
Christianity in the third century, and must have
come from Rome—Alr. BURKE refused to recognise
the saint and his reputed doings in Ireland, consi-
dering him altogether a myth, though he was quite
willing to admit that " St. Patrick was a gentle-
man."

The meeting adjourned till the Bth of May.

PRINCESS'S THEATRE, EDINBURGH.—The " Mari-
ner's Compass" continues to be played with in-
creasing success. The "get up" of the shipwreck scene
in the first act has been greatly improved since we first
had the pleasure of noticing it. This and the drowning
scene in the last act constitute the "sensational" features of
the piece, the plot being simple, and the characters those
of every-day life. The attraction of the play is due in a
great measure to the acting of Mr. and Mrs. Holt, the
latter of whom has a part well suited to her as Jessy
Arnold ; and the unassuming part of Silas Engleheart,
which in the hands of less discriminating artistes would
be made conspicuous by rant and bombast, is acted by Mr.
Holt with the quiet truthfulness of one who studies to re-
present nature, and not to court the applause of the gal-
lery. The drama will be repeated all this week.—Courant.