DEATH OF A GREAT-GRANDDAUGHTER

OF ROBERT BURNS.

A

NOTHER link with the Poet has been broken

by the death of his great-granddaughter, Miss Margaret Constance Burns Hutchinson, at Cheltenham, on

Saturday, 8th December, 1917, after a brief illness. Her mother, Sarah Burns, was the elder daughter of the Poet's fourth son, Lieutenant-Colonel James Glencairn Burns, who, after many years' service in India, settled at Cheltenham, and died there in 1865. Her mother married Dr W. B. Hutchinson, and lived for some time in Australia,

but after Dr Hutchinson's death in 1862 she and her young children returned to the family home at Cheltenham. There Miss Burns Hutchinson was brought up, and since her mother's death in 1909 she and her aunt, Miss Annie B. Burns, have lived together. In 1896 Miss Burns Hutchinson and her aunt visited Scotland in connection with the Burns Centenary celebrations, and had places of honour at the great gatherings at Dumfries, Glasgow, and Mauchline. The National Burns Memorial and Cottage Homes at Mauchline specially appealed to them. During their stay in Glasgow they visited the Burns Exhibition and the cottage and monument at Alloway. Miss Burns Hutchinson came north again on several occasions. Among her intimate friends she was called Daisy, perhaps because the poem "To a Daisy" was one of her mother's favourites. Well educated and widely read, of a singularly frank, happy temperament, with much of the Poet's intellectual power, she was a delightful personality. She had also a striking resemblance to the Poet in feature as represented in the Nasmyth portrait. She is survived by two sisters, Mrs Burns Scott, of Adelaide, and Mrs Burns Gowring, wife of the principal of St. Bede's School, Eastbourne; by her brother, Robert Burns Hutchinson, British Columbia, and by her aged aunt, Miss Annie B. Burns, now in her 83rd year, the only surviving granddaughter of the Poet, to all of whora the warmest sympathy of lovers of Burns is certain to be extended. Miss Margaret Constance died unmarried. A portrait of her appeared in Chronicle No. IV., 1895.

REVIEWS.

A NICHT WI' BURNS, IN ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCHYARD, DUMFRIES.

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"Lore

THIS is a queer booklet, written under the nom de plume burnian," and sold at the modest price of twopence, by Messrs Menzies, Ltd., Holmes & Co., Ltd., and Wm. Love, booksellers, Glasgow. The author entertains very extreme views on the liquor question, which find expression in a vehement and wholesale denunciation of Burns Clubs for associating the name of Burns with drink and drunkenness." He wrote an article on the subject, and offered it to the Scotsman, the editor of which journal very politely declined it, but said he would "stand " a letter on the subject if the writer would be good enough to express himself in that form. The letter was also declined, an illustration, our author says, "of the fickleness of the editorial mind." But it did not matter much, seeing he has printed it himself as part of the

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twopenceworth. Follows a song on The Cult of the Crystal

Chalice," from which we extract a sample stanza :—

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We cannot deny, for Burns has said it, that "Tam lo'ed him like a very brither," for the simple and solitary reason that they had been fou for weeks thegither"; but the clubs are not exclusively composed of Tams and Souters; as a matter of fact, some of them are run on strict T.T. lines without any bar to admission to the benefits of the Federation.

The Psalmist said in his haste that all men are liars, and our author has similarly erred in assuming that all unpledged men, Burnsian and otherwise, are drunkards. Still, it is undeniable that there are some drunkards and quite as many liars still to the fore. At the end of the song comes the "Nicht wi' Burns". '—a packet of " moighty foine wroiting," in which Burns's wraith is introduced in the guise of a T.T. orator. Pearls fall from his lips, and here is one of them, descriptive of an anniversary meeting :-

"The glutton-faced sensualists shouting and jerking the words with sibilant incoherence through lips thick with glutinous alcoholic slime, and exhaling from the rumbling gutters in their muckle wames a smell as foul and sickening as the stink of a rotten hedgehog."

This is strong-stronger than haggis with nothing to wash it down. Towards the end of his vision," "Loreburnian" tells us that he saw a sentence in flaming letters (traced by wireless, we suppose) on the vault of heaven, from which issued "millions of magnetic currents, and concentrated themselves into one point in the centre of my forehead."

That explains it-we mean the queerness of the booklet. Visions of that supernatural kind are not the monopoly of teetotalers, though, strange to say, they usually have a similar cerulean background. "Loreburnian would do well to eschew the pen till the magnetic currents have subsided.

ROBERT BURNS AS A FREEMASON.

THIS beautiful brochure, a most desirable acquisition for any Burns collection, irrespective of the speciality of its subject, preserves in printed form a lecture delivered to the Edinburgh Right Worshipful Masters' and Past Masters' Association, on 13th October, 1916, by Mr Wm, Lawson, P.M., Lodge St. David, Edinburgh, No. 36, and forms a most appropriate addendum to the article dealing with the same subject, reprinted in the Chronicle of last year. Of all accounts of Burns's connection with Masonry (and they are many), this is the most comprehensive, concise, and reliable which has appeared. Its value is enhanced by some dozen and a half photogravures executed in the highest style of the art. The Brethren everywhere should secure a copy.

BURNS AND THE MERRY MASONS.

THIS is a small pamphlet in rhyme (Dundee: F. M. Sparks; price 3d), by Mr W. Harvey, in which Tam o' Shanter is re-incarnated and introduced to the light by a core of merry Masons with all the mysterious rites of the craft, supplemented by a few extras improvised for the occasion. The "mirth and fun are fast and furious " all through the composition, which is in Mr Harvey's most humorous vein.

BURNS AND THE WAR: HIS MESSAGE TO THE NATION. THIS, in pamphlet form, is the sermon delivered before the Glasgow and District Burns Association, in St. George's Parish Church, Glasgow, on 28th January, 1917, by the Rev. Donald Macmillan, D.D.,

Minister of Kelvinhaugh Parish Church.

The proceeds of the sale are devoted by the Association to the funds of the Burns Homes It is an excellent address, upon it by the Press at The reverend author is an enthusiastic

at Mauchline, the price per copy being 3d. and deserved the high encomiums passed the date of its delivery.

Burnsian and broad-minded clergyman. We heartily commend the pamphlet to every member of a Burns Club.

CATALOGUE OF THE BURNS MUSEUM, COTTAGE HOMES,
MAUCHLINE.

THIS catalogue of the objects of Burns interest which the committee of the Cottage Homes has brought together is prefaced by a valuable history of the formation of the Memorial, by Mr Thomas Killin, Hon. Secretary and Treasurer, who has been one of the leading spirits of the Memorial from its inception onwards. During that time his enthusiasm has never flagged, and we trust his carefully compiled catalogue will be the means of drawing many more Burnsians to the Mauchline shrine for which he has done so much.