Fellow of the Peloponnesus Archæological Association; member of the Society for the excavation of Monuments in the Dodecanese; Director of the Paris Antique Armchair Club; former Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Bessarabia; and author of THE USE OF WORM-HOLES AMONG THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. ———— [Illustration] THE EUROPEAN FIELD By PROFESSOR CHARLES A. DOOLITTLE, F.R.A.C.S. I OF THE PLENITUDE AND INTOXICATING EFFECT OF EUROPEAN ANTIQUE-SHOPS—OF THE LARGE SHOPS AND OF THE SMALL ONES SMELLING OF CHEESE-RIND—AND OF THE NUMEROUS STORIES WHICH ARE USED AS ENCOURAGEMENT FOR AMATEUR ANTIQUE-HUNTERS ———— PUBLISHER’S NOTE: Charles A. Doolittle, F.R.A.C.S., because of his wide knowledge of European antiques, was made Furniture Polisher to King Ferdinand of Bulgaria early in 1913, retaining his high position for several years. He was decorated with the Order of the Holy Quail, first class, for exemplary bravery during the Rumanian attack on Tirnova, when for three consecutive days, under heavy shell fire, he remained under a Louis Quatorze sofa, polishing it with as much care as could have been used under normal conditions. * * * * * Whatever one’s bent in antiques may be, he will find it encouraged in Europe to a point undreamed of in America. Antique-shops are as plentiful in every large European city as were saloons in South Boston not long ago; and their contents, in many cases, have an equally intoxicating effect. Uncultured persons who go into them with the intention of purchasing just one small Louis XV eggcup will frequently emerge with increased learning and laden down with a Provençal dough-trough, a pair of stirrup-irons, half a dozen French prints, an old leather purse, four pewter plates, and a large painting of a vaseful of wild flowers. The streets of Paris are punctuated with shop-signs which read _ANTIQUITÉS_; the streets of Rome and Florence and Milan and Venice are spotted with _ANTICHITA_ signs; just around every corner in Vienna and Berlin is an _ANTIQUITÄTEN_ shop. The word for antiques is approximately the same in all languages, as a result, of course, of an international agreement between antique-dealers who wish the tourists to enjoy their travels. [Illustration: PLATE VII PROFESSOR KILGALLEN’S MAGNIFICENT COLLECTION OF EARLY AMERICAN UTENSILS, ALL HAND-WROUGHT, AND SOME OBTAINED FROM THE DESCENDANTS OF THE FAMILIES IN WHICH THE ARTICLES HAD BEEN HANDED DOWN FROM FATHER TO SON 1. Instrument used in making early furniture. 2. A colonial plastron, used in disciplining the cattle. 3. Old mantel ornament. 4 and 5. Instruments used in disposing of undesirable pottery. 6. Colonial calambosa; early Spanish-American instrument for seeding turnips. ]