The Old Farmer and his Almanack. By George Lyman Kettridge.
(W. Ware and Co., Boston, U.S.A.)—In 1792 Mr. Robert B. Thomas published the first number of the Farmer's Almanack. He was the son of a certain William Thomas, himself the son of a Welsh immigrant and a man of many adventures, and was born at Grafton, Mass., in 1766. He lived to publish fifty-four numbers of his Almanac, and the publication continues to appear to this day. One is reminded of " Old Moore," though Mr. Thomas never admitted astrology into his columns. Mr. Kettridge has had the happy idea of taking the Almanac and tracing in its contents, growth, and change the passing away and the beginning of many things. The first reference is, of course, to the United States, and especially to England; but the analogies are sufficiently close to make this a highly interesting book. It is difficult to choose out of a collec- tion so large and so varied. Let us take some stories which may be selected as having a wider application than seems at first sight to belong to them. The subject under discussion in one number is the recovery of the apparently drowned. Here are cases related by a medical man who was apparently a man of sense, and who believed what he was writing :—A fisherman was kept under water by ice for three weeks and came to life. " A large Bladder had been formal about his Head for his Preservation." A Swedish woman was three hours under water without ice or bladder, and came to life. Best of all, one Laurence Jones was seven weeks under water, but recovered, and lived to be seventy. So said the preacher who preached his funeral sermon, according to a credible hearer. We are now in the region of miracle.
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