to the fact that, while in Old Testament Palestine primogeniture was the rule, the line of ancestry of Christ exhibits some remarkable exceptions. And among primitive peoples the hero or demi-god is very often the younger son. Under the name of "Borough English," the law by which the father's real property descends to the youngest son alone, survives in Gloucester and some few other places in England,--Lambeth, Hackney, part of Islington, Heston, Edmonton, etc. Another interesting tenure is that of gavelkind, by which the land and property of the father was inherited in equal portions by all his sons, the youngest taking the house, the eldest the horse and arms, and so on. This mode of tenure, before the Conquest, was quite common in parts of England, especially Wales and Northumberland, still surviving especially in the county of Kent. Many things, indeed, testify of the care which was taken even in primitive times to secure that the youngest born, the child of old age, so frequently the best-loved, should not fare ill in the struggle for life. _Child-Nurses._ One important function of the child (still to be seen commonly among the lower classes of the civilized races of to-day) with primitive peoples is that of nurse and baby-carrier. Even of Japan, Mrs. Bramhall gives this picture (189. 33):-- "We shall see hundreds of small children, not more than five or six years of age, carrying, fast asleep on their shoulders, the baby of the household, its tiny smooth brown head swinging hither and thither with every movement of its small nurse, who walks, runs, sits, or jumps, flies kites, plays hop-scotch, and fishes for frogs in the gutter, totally oblivious of that infantile charge, whether sleeping or waking. If no young sister or brother be available, the husband, the uncle, the father, or grandfather hitches on his back the baby, preternaturally good and contented."