In comment on the custom, in many lands, of carrying out the dead from a house or a city through a special door or gate, instead of over the threshold at the principal entrance,[717] he says: “At present, in the farmhouses about Hoorn, in Holland, there is a state door opened only for marriages and funerals. The family use a side or back door only.”[718] Again, “the ἱερὰ πύλη (_hiera pule_, ‘sacred gate’) at Athens seems to have been an accursed gate, through which criminals only were led out.” In confirmation of the claim that human life, or blood, was deemed essential in the foundation, or the threshold laying of a city,[719] Professor Mahaffy says: “Great Hellenistic cities, as, for instance, Antioch, had a girl sacrificed at their foundation. It was she, apparently, that afterwards appeared as the personification of the city, ἡ τύχη [_hē tuchē_, ‘the fortune,’] as it was called.” “The ‘red hand of the O’Neills’ is a famous coat-of-arms well known in Ireland. Lord O’Neill now bears it.” As to my assumption that the first hearthstone must have been, in the nature of things, at the threshold of the cave or tent or hut, as it still is among primitive peoples, and that the first stone laid at the corner, or at the doorway, of a house or building, was, by the very fact of its first laying, the threshold of that structure, Professor Mahaffy says: “I don’t believe in the identification of (1) foundation stone, (2) threshold, (3) house corner, (4) hearthstone, without clear proof.” ----- Footnote 717: See pp. 23–25, _supra_. Footnote 718: This was so in parts of New England, fifty years ago. I have seen the main hall or front “entry” of a farmhouse in Connecticut used as a bedroom, with a high-post state bedstead against the front door. In case of a funeral or wedding the bedstead would be removed, in order that the door might be opened.–H.C.T. Footnote 719: See pp. 45–57, _supra_. ----- FROM PROFESSOR DR. WILLIAM A. LAMBERTON. In Dr. Lamberton, Professor of Greek, and Dean of the Department of Philosophy, the University of Pennsylvania has a scholar as acute and discerning in his observations as he is full and accurate in knowledge in his special field of classic Greek. He has been familiar with the results of my researches during my progress of recent years, and he has this to say, after examining the proof-sheets of the completed work: “Your induction seems to me to be very wide, and to include in its sweep all phases of civilization, which is practically as much as to say all periods of human existence, from the most primitive on. “The significance of the threshold as altar, place of covenanting and worship, in house, temple, and domain, I think is completely made out.