The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-03-15
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

my stories about geese, and l am go-
 ing to take the liberty of quoting from it.
 He said: Your statement that Mother Goose was real person. and
 the wife of Mir. Goose was of great in
 terest to those who have regarded her as mythical parsonage" Now. ' got
 the information from the preface of an edition of her rhymes.
 When I opened his letter l at first
 thought that he was going to chal- lenge my crediting them to Boston
 woman. and had he done so was not
 going to strive to prove the case, for am well aware that, like many other things in the literary world, It is in dis pute. I merely gave it as bit of in- teresting data.
 The trouble about so many things which gain credence and become part of ones common knowledge is that along comes some dry-as-dust histor- ianNwho delves into history and with l his scientific spade throws dirt in our eyes and makes us believe that we are all wrong, and that he only has dug down to the root of the matter
 
 Take the tale of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. and the story of William Tell as samples of how historians come along and unset tie our childish beliefs. So far as am concerned. am strong for Christopher and refuse to go further back than 14s2, and while William Teli may be dissolved into myth by some. he was. is, and always will be a man and real hero to me.
 The Readers Handbook puts Mother Goose down as a Boston au- thoress who wrote the nursery rhymes and says that she used to sing them to
 her grandson, and that Thomas Fleet her brotner-in- of Pudding Lane (now Devonshire street, London), printed and published the first edition, entitled, Songs for the Nursery, or
 Mother Gooses Melodies in 1719. This ] reads like clincher. but wait, as I | wish to lay bare more details. In the preface of an English edition which have Is the following: There Is not much that need be said about the time honored book of old Mother Goose's Songs and Nursery Rhymes. It Is just as old as it Is young and innocent. It is truly as old as the English tongue itself Nay, parts of 1t are older Now, this is pushing the origin back quite a bit and far enough away from Boston to satisfy any Englishman.
 But there is more to reveal for the redoubling ditty of This Is the House that Jack Built" was first put into shape out of a set of lines in an old Jewish service book, while some of the riddles are taken from Welsh and scotch ones, and some of the rhymes were first heard in France and Spain still" the writer says, the heart of it Is English enough English as a Norfolk dumping or Sussex down" Now the English are the great ap-
 propriators. If an Englishman in sail l ing around on the sea found loose island he hoisted an English flag, and from that day on it was Englands If, on the other hand, one of the breed happened to be wandering around on the face of the earth and found a par eel of land which had not been staked out he took 1t over in the name of John Bull. This is why they were accused of creating an empire in a fit of ab- sent-mindedness.
 There Is no mention in the preface about the Boston lady, but much is given about the book being drawn from hundred sources. but is not | quite the same in any of them. Halli- well is given credit for the part he put together for the Percy Society, | some three score years ago. But his volume was rather for collectors than I for babes and small children. and Tor nurses and mothers, and so I'll cling ! to our own American Mother Goose, who is easily understandable to them am also aware thatyMrs Gomme ana l the collectors of the English Folklore 1 Society have been busily engaged in
 ransacking England for tales and verses. which Is very estimable thing l to do provided that they leave us
 Mother Goose without editing it away
 know that many child rhymes. lulIa- 1 bies and nursery ditties are afloat and l that-they are we'll worth collecting and publishing, and that the world owes Joel Chandler Harris gratitude for his
 Uncle Remus" stories.
 l I tried out the encyclopedias on the Nursery Rhymes" and I found only 1 one with any new data on the subject. and it stated that 'it is now conceded that Mother Goose" belongs to French folklore and not to English tradition, Now. I would not have given this out l if the English collectors had not left | out Elizabeth Goose of Boston and 1 took all the credit for their own. Now,
 am not antagonistic to our cousins
 overseas, but my, what chalmers they
 are. I would hate to go partridge
 shooting with an Englishman.
 The Americans" says: "Charles
 Perrault. who was born in Paris. 1928, was the first person to collect, reduce
 to writing. and publish the 'contes de
 Ma Mere rove or Tales of Mother
 Goose though he did not originate | the name, and there is no reason to
 think that Mother Goose was a term ever used in English literature until l it was translated from the French ] equivalent, Mere Love The "Bri- tannica' is silent on the subject. Now, my readers can take their choice among I the three claimants. merely went into the question to show how hard 1t
 is to make a claim that some one can not discredit.
 But back to Dave" Grace. who main- tains that many of the melodies have a
 moral and a propheticN meaning. He thinks Jack and Jill'' was predicting | what bafell the Kaiser and Hiudsn-