London apart, few cities in Great Britain have been written
about so copiously as Edinburgh from the point of view of architecture, surroundings, and romantic history • but of the ecorioniic gro*th of the city, Of its institutional history, Of how certain customs and privileges sprang up to endure into the present day, we do not know so much. There is, therefore, eminently room for such a book as Castle and Town (Oliver and Boyd, 12s. 6d.), which takes these topics fOr its theme, and the more so that it is so far as official records can make it, authoritative. For of the joint authors, Mr. David Robertson is Deputy Town Clerk of Edinburgh, While Dr. Marguerite Wood is in charge of the City records ; they have thus been in touch with original and, in some cases, unpublished information-. Particularly valuable are the chapters on the Freedom of the City and on the " sett " of the burgh, which are a careful study of the development of the municipal constitution. In lighter vein, but none the leis useful as painting social pictures of the time; are the passages- which deal with the ducking of malefactors and the drowning of witches throughout the sixteenth and seven- teenth century in the Nor Loch, which is now Princes Street Gardens. The authors mention that " the economic history of Scotland has not yet been written." Their book will be a most helpful contribution to• it, when •it- comes to be
Written.
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