OUTSKIRTS OF HISTORY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 893, 14 September 1956, Page 14

OUTSKIRTS OF HISTORY

CURIOSITIES FROM PARLIAMENT, by Stanley Hyland; Allan Wingate, English price 12/6. W HEN and what was the Great Stink, and how effective was the London

and New York pelf Effecting Transit Society? Where was the Minje Mama | dance a capital offence? How many | king’s ships were disabled by lightning | during the Napoleonic wars? What con- | stituency decided to elect its members | of Parliament "by way of bullets"? Stanley Hyland has dug the answers to these and other conundrums with diligence and wit from improbable sources, notably from Parliamentary Blue Books, 100,000 of which, it appears, stand on Mr. Speaker’s left hand as he walks to take his place in the Chamber. This unusual book, however, deals not merely with lively and unexpected obscurities, but attractively presents worthwhile material on British social history, drawn from the fountain-head of histori- | cal understanding-the original sources | themselves. Nine major episodes. are handled-major in that each led to the printing of a solid slab of Parliamentary | papers-and incidentally most of them | bear on Britain overseas: on the colonies, exploration, or the navy. Their intrinsic | importance varies widely; from the , health of London to the selling of buns in Hyde Park; from ritual murder to | army boots and the alleged encourage- / ment of mendacity by the introduction | of voting by secret ballot. Overall, there | is remarkable evidence of the way in _which, with luck, Parliament and Gov- | ernment could be roused by unimportant people and by. injustices which | affected only the humble; though the | humble did not always triumph. Most of the tracks followed by Mr. ) Hyland are little frequented, though his ) striking passages on immigrant ships touch on matters more familiar to New | Zealanders than to the British audience, | for whom presumably he wrote, All cut _ deep, one way or another, however, into important™ aspects of British life last century, and it is to be hoped that Mr. Hyland will continue his unorthodox

proceeaings.

F. L. W.

Wood