The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-10-10
Story of Henry Bradley, Dictionary Maker, Reads
 Like Arabian Nights
HAD PASSION FOR
 ANCIENT TONGUES
Correspondent Finds the Great Scholar at Oxford Wrestling With the Word
 "Succotash"
By HADEN CHURCH

London, September 9.-(Special Cor respondence. )-This is the story of how a poor clerk in hardware shop Tn an English provincial town vacated ms job one daypand, in an almost mlrac- ulously short time, made himself rec ognized as one of the most profound and brilliant scholars, and one of the greatest authorities on the English language in the whole world.
 It is one of two extraordinary real life stories (and there may be more did we only know about them) that are closely connected with the making of that monument of industry ana scholarship the new English dicuon- ary, popularly known as Murray s English Dictionary whose famous eo- itor and principal creator, SIT James A. H. Murray, passed away so recent ly. The first of these stories-that oi Dr. w. S. Minor, the mysterious con tributor to the dictionary whom SIT James Murray finally discovered to De an American civil war surgeon impris- oned in Broadmoor criminal lunatic asylum, already has been told Tn tnese columns The second, and hardiy iess striking one, concerns the career a Henry Bradley, who for nearly ~ wears has been Sir James Murray nrst lieutenant and right hand man (un- der whose sole editorship, in fact, sew eraI volumes of the new English dlc- tionary have been brought out), ana who now has succeeded his late cniei as supreme head of this might literary work.
 Since the passing of the great Tex, icoerapher of our time, many new ana Fascinating details regarding the huge task with which he wrestled for nearly 40 wears and yet left unfinished, nave been published all of which add 10 our conception of its magnitude. Ihe present writer, for example, has learned that in quoting the number of the quo tations which reached Sir James Mur- ray from his army of volunteer read CTS all over the world as three and half millions (Sir James own figures in the preface to the dictionary, the estimate was placed far too low, SIT James having, later on, stated that these quotations represented over i've | million! Placed end to end, the lexi- | cographer declared, these slips would have reached from one end of Britain to the other (550 miles), while the writ- ing on them, if treated similarly, would have extended from London to the great wall of China.
 While at oxford on a visit to Henry
 
 ary. the other day l saw something . too of the infinite variety of the wortS
 of it's editors. MT. Bradley himseif,f wno is now finishing the letter "S'' has TOT I example, recently been in correspono' ence with American ph1lologlsts re garding that delightful word Gas tooth some as the product for which II
 stands), "succotash." The result, how ever. have not, it seems, been wnoiiy conclusive For, whereas 1t has peeh i established pretty definitely that the ' original word, "mesickquatsh Is an Algonquin one, belonging to the Nar ragansett dialects, its original mean
 ing is in doubt, one set of authori- i ties asserting that it refers to a Vese- ktable substance kept whole, While an l other set affirms that it relates to ono divided into smaller parts. Apropos ol such pathological quests, MT. Bradley told me that his distinguished prede' 1cessor once wrote in one week to
 director of Kew Gardens about an ex, botic plant to Roman Catholic pries'
 on a point of divinity, to 8 Newcastle
 boat builder about keel (tooay nc knight have addressed his inquiry te ethe Kaiser) to sporting newspaper Ito another authority about pIoatel
 and to many more people on 8 variety
 of subjects.
 But to return to the new editor O fthe great dictionary. It is safe to saA Pthat the average man in the street nevel -even has heard the name Of Henry brad
 Hey, just as, like as not, not one Tn khundred of them could have told vol
 off-hand whether Sir James Murray s ws
 "a nlilologist or an Arctic explorer. Int
 account of himself that Bradley gives il
 .Who's Who does not particularly sug
 gest a romance, nor do the biographie
 of him in other works of reference thougl
 they make plain the fact that ne IS
 distinguished scholar We learn, Tn lact
 that he has classical honors rom oN