The tendency of modern thought is to simplification. The African savage, bowing to his fetish, has probably a more complex theory of life than the Oxford professor, and the study of folk-lore shows how penetrating was the influence of custom and superstition upon the life of the people. It followed man from the cradle to the grave. There were ceremonies to be observed at birth, at marriage, at death; at every stage of the journey of life. It gave to clouds and birds omens that decided human fate. It peopled the meadows with fairies, and the mountains with witches; and made the woods and waters alive with spirits, sometimes friendly, but often malignant. It lighted the Beltane fires at Midsummer and the Yule-log at Christmas. The Calendar of the Year and the Calendar of Man’s Life alike registered its decrees. Whatever happened, good or bad, was referred alike to the supernatural powers, who for bane or blessing were continually intervening in the most trivial details of every home. Fairies were sometimes friends and sometimes foes, but witches and warlocks were entirely malicious. The dead rested not in their graves, but returned to terrify the living. The old gods, dethroned from their eminence, remained as demons to exercise a real and usually an evil power. Viewed in this light the decay of folk-lore may be regarded as an advantage. We may regret the nymphs and dryads, and even the “lubber fiend,” but with them vanish the whole tribe of “witches and warlocks and things that cried ‘Boh’ in the night.” We will not desire to revive or retain the popular superstitions and customs of bygone days, but as they pass away let us examine them with careful and patient attention, and see what they have to tell us of the past history of the race and the psychology of primitive man. Studied in this spirit we may sometimes learn as much from the observation of a child’s game as from the speculations of a philosopher. Footnote 13: Chief magistrate of the police. Manchester Grammar School Mill. In 1883 the Manchester School Mill was acquired by the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, in order to make a new road from Long Millgate to Victoria Station. With the destruction of the School Mill there passed away a curious relic of ancient custom, and a link that connected modern Manchester with the quaint old town that stood by Irk and Irwell in the fourteenth century. In the very home of Free Trade there existed a monopoly at least six centuries old. The School Mill claimed the right to grind all the malt that is brewed within the limits of the old town of Manchester. This monopoly is but a fragment of its former privileges, which were abolished as inimical to the general good more than a century ago.