Garden Parties Research Articles

Dynamic capability and competitive advantage of event management ventures in Kenya

ABSTRACT Event management in the hospitality industry came into being because many corporate firms, families and friends asked hotels to organise their gatherings. For corporate firms, these events are considered training programmes, meetings, or conferences. For families, events include weddings, birthday parties, or even garden parties. When large numbers of people gather for any purpose, it requires proper management. This management of arrangements provided to people is done by the event management team. The hospitality sector includes event management. Hotel event management ensures that any event in the hotel runs smoothly. Event ventures use resources and create economic costs and benefits in equal measure. Apart from the provision of job alternatives, events raise the level of population participation in economic development, generate secondary income, enhance community stability, and are often considered to leave minimal damage to the physical environment. With rising competition in the events management industry, competitive strategies help focus on assessing organisations’ strengths, growth opportunities and competitive threats. Traditional competitive advantage models may not be applicable for smaller firms because they assume the existence of scale economies. Yet small firms cannot compete with larger organisations in economies of scale. This article therefore tries to determine the influence of dynamic capabilities on the competitive advantage of event management ventures (EMvs) in selected counties in Kenya. The sample size comprised 230 managers selected through stratified and simple random sampling techniques respectively, and 15 entrepreneurs selected using purposive sampling. The regression analysis revealed that dynamic capabilities (β = 0.295, p < 0.001) significantly influenced the competitive advantage of EMvs. The study recommends that managers should be flexible in the constantly changing environment and adapt their competencies to achieve competitive advantage.

An Island of Whiteness: Rereading Penelope Lively’s Oleander, Jacaranda (1994)

This article rereads Penelope Lively's first memoir Oleander, Jacaranda (1994) as not only witnessing the end of British colonial rule, but also revealing how life in England – and more widely Britain – elides and conceals the impact of Empire. Lively's childhood in Egypt is described as a lonely one, yet the private, often confined world of Oleander, Jacaranda offers glimpses of life on an island of whiteness, creating a first-hand account of how Lively's English household was marooned within its Egyptian surroundings. It repeatedly draws our attention to the subterranean, partially obscured experiences of a wealthy white colonial childhood, asking us to imagine what worlds and realities are excluded from a surface-level view of drawing rooms, verandahs and garden parties. Yet, just as importantly, Lively indicates how these formative years underwrite her later experiences on another, significantly larger island. Returning to Oleander, Jacaranda at a time when British society remains incapable of fully addressing its colonial past, reveals a challenging, probing account of how we remember and understand the legacies of Empire in twenty-first-century Britain.

Daimyo Gardens by Shirahata Yōzaburō

Reviewed by: Daimyo Gardens by Shirahata Yōzaburō Christian Tagsold Daimyo Gardens. By Shirahata Yōzaburō. Translated by Imoto Chikako and Lynne E. Riggs. Kyoto: International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 2016. 209 pages. Nichibunken Monograph Series 19: http://nichibun.repo.nii.ac.jp. Shirahata Yōzaburō’s Daimyō no teien is among the most important books on the history of Japanese gardens to have been published in recent decades. Though aimed at a broad readership, that book introduced a new paradigm in scholarship on the subject, shifting the focus from reductionist Kyoto gardens, for decades erroneously labeled “Zen gardens,” to the lively and colorful world of Edo gardens. The English edition under review here is part of a translation project of the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (Nichibunken) aimed at making books by its scholars more accessible to an international readership. Translated by Imoto Chikako and Lynne E. Riggs, Daimyo Gardens offers a significant restructuring of the original, with a discussion of pleasure gardens in Japan and Europe, for example, presented early in the book rather than hidden in later chapters. This edition also has a larger format and is much more lavishly and colorfully illustrated than the original paperback. Thus [End Page 260] Anglophone readers are afforded a better visual impression of the daimyo gardens than their Japanese counterparts.1 Shirahata, a leading scholar of Japanese garden history, was one of the first to challenge the orthodox view that Kyoto gardens from the middle ages represent the pinnacle of Japanese garden culture while Edo gardens symbolize its general decline. His 1997 Daimyō no teien preceded another work with an iconoclastic take on the Japanese garden, published in 2005, by fellow Nichibunken scholar Yamada Shōji; the book by Yamada, as it happened, appeared in English in 2009, seven years prior to Daimyo Gardens.2 These two works in English place Nichibunken at the forefront of redefining Japanese garden history, which is remarkable for an institution founded in 1987 to sustain conservative discourses of Japaneseness. Prior to Shirahata’s scholarship, daimyo gardens had been largely neglected by historians notwithstanding the more than one thousand gardens of feudal lords that in their time had been the pride of the capital. The quarters of the shogunate’s retainers, which dominated Edo, must have resembled a large garden landscape, making it a green city indeed despite the extreme population density in the commoner’s quarters. Today not even a dozen of these daimyo gardens still remain, most of them having been scrapped in the construction of modern Tokyo. The book under review brings the rich culture of daimyo gardens back to life. Most daimyo built several gardens in Edo. Though initially they would maintain only one residence, after the great fire of the Meiroku era in 1657 they added more as retreats in case of emergency. Typically, a daimyo would own a main, a middle, and a lower residence in what today is the Yamanote area of Tokyo, and each residence was adorned by a garden (p. 101). Aesthetically, the daimyo gardens were different from those in Kyoto, which were smaller in size, more secluded, and often part of a temple. In contrast, the Edo gardens featured open vistas, huge ponds, and large lawns as the daimyo competed to build spacious, open gardens that reflected their wealth and political influence. The sites often took up literary allusions and mimicked famous landscapes. Daimyo Gardens does more than elaborate on the aesthetic splendor of the gardens, focusing rather on their social function—another area that has been mostly neglected by traditional histories. Shirahata uses the famous garden of Katsura Detached Palace in Kyoto to illustrate the problematic consequences of the predilection for aesthetics in previous scholarship. With scrutiny placed exclusively on the aesthetic qualities of the Katsura garden, its rich history of “gaiety and fun” was supplanted by a “stiff image” of an “elegant garden modeled on Heian-period standards of beauty” (p. 8). Daimyo and imperial gardens like Katsura served a multitude of social purposes in the Edo period. They set the scene for banquets, garden parties, meetings for composing renga, horseback riding, duck hunting, fishing, and so on. Lawns were a...

London’s West End Actresses and the Origins of Celebrity Charity, 1880–1920 by Catherine Hindson

Reviewed by: London’s West End Actresses and the Origins of Celebrity Charity, 1880–1920 by Catherine Hindson Anna Andes LONDON’S WEST END ACTRESSES AND THE ORIGINS OF CELEBRITY CHARITY, 1880–1920. By Catherine Hindson. Studies in Theatre History and Culture series. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2016; pp. 222. Catherine Hindson’s London’s West End Actresses and the Origins of Celebrity Charity, 1880–1920 is remarkable in its timeliness and in the breadth and depth of its value for numerous fields of study. Thoughtful and well-researched, Hindson’s work appears at a time of great interest among theatre historians and performance theorists in the late Victorian, Edwardian, and pre–World War I era. In particular, the role and contributions of women in British theatre during this time has garnered much attention. Hindson’s study fills a significant gap by appreciating and analyzing the unpaid labor of theatre women during this period through charity work and its societal and professional implications. Hindson’s book is part of a broader, longstanding effort by scholars of women’s history and feminist theory to appreciate the significance of women’s unpaid labor throughout the evolution of human history. She focuses in particular on the unpaid labor of actresses in the form of charity work in support of both ongoing social concerns, such as hospitals and orphanages, as well as acute concerns such as national disasters, like the sinking of the Titanic and military actions overseas. All of this unpaid labor, Hindson argues, required actresses to constantly renegotiate their professional identities. For instance, their work within the historically paternalistic organizational structures of established charities raised the question of exactly what professional skills the actress had to offer, beyond the presumed merely decorative and performative. Additionally, audiences began to perceive actresses differently, as their onstage personas were now complicated by new offstage personas. And finally, charity work involved working in close association with society women, requiring the negotiation of class boundaries and age-old prejudices against the morally suspect theatrical profession. Hindson’s exploration of all of these sites of identity negotiation is woven throughout her careful and thorough defining and documentation of various charity activities with which actresses worked. The book’s seven chapters are grouped together in three parts. In each chapter, the author carefully defines each type of charity activity and provides a discussion of its history leading up to the era covered in the book. At times, these discussions seem to lose sight of actresses, either as a collective group or as individuals; however, this is no doubt due to her reasonable assumption that the work must first provide a thorough historical and categorical grounding in each charity topic that is likely not familiar to most theatre historians. Ultimately, although pages go by without a discussion of actresses per se, her exhaustive background material on so many different types of charity events certainly supports her thematic goal of orienting and evaluating the unpaid charitable work of actresses during this time. In part 1, “Charity and the West End Theatre Industry,” Hindson discusses the history of intra-theatrical charity engagement within West End theatre culture and practice, paying particular attention to the changing purpose and form of the traditional fundraising matinee. In part 2, “Public Charity Events,” she provides a comparative analysis of the emergence of such extra-theatrical charity activities as costume balls, bazaars, tea parties, and garden parties. Her analysis of these events pays particular attention to an increase in the physical access of spectators to actresses who were no longer confined to the formal stage of a fundraising matinee, but were now, for example, selling goods and pouring tea. Hindson’s research in this area opens up interesting avenues for further inquiry regarding the actresses’ now differently commodified body and audiences’ perception of it. In this part of her work, Hindson documents the emergence of certain celebrity cultural forms with which we are familiar [End Page 575] today, such as the sale of autographed pictures in support of charity. Part 3, “The Stage and War,” highlights yet two more forms of charity performance: recitations in support of the Second Boer War, and “Concerts at the...

Serenading Spanish Students on the Streets of Paris: The International Projection of Estudiantinas in the 1870s

Spanish estudiantina plucked string ensembles achieved immense popularity in the last two decades of the nineteenth century and were an important catalyst in the creation of the sonority of a variety of European and American popular musics. Such ensembles had precedents in Spanish student groups dating back to the Renaissance and the rondallas (or groupings of plucked instruments) that were associated with popular outdoor serenades. However, the modern estudiantina movement can be traced back to 1878, and was consciously framed as a modern historical construct. A large grouping of youths and former students, donning Renaissance student dress, decided to form a society to visit Paris during Carnival, on the eve of the 1878 Exposition Universelle. They took Paris by storm, performing in a variety of street settings, reinforcing the exotic stereotypes of serenading musicians associated with Spain, and bringing to life historical notions of the minstrel. In the decade that followed, the European performance contexts of the estudiantinas included theatres, outdoor venues and expositions, garden parties and salons – and they became fixtures of the music hall and the café chantant. This paper explores early English and French constructions of the estudiantina phenomenon, and how the groups were framed in the light of exotic street musics and prevailing tropes of Spain. It also examines how the outdoor performance settings of the estudiantinas were translated onto the theatrical stage.

‘Unmistakeable Sauerkrauts’: Local Perceptions of Itinerant German Musicians in New Zealand, 1850–1920

Although largely forgotten today, bands of German musicians (generally from the Westpfalz region) were regular visitors to New Zealand’s shores from the 1850s up until the outbreak of World War I, making them among the earliest professional European musical ensembles to be heard in the country. Plying their trade on the streets and in other public spaces, German bands were also routinely hired to perform for garden parties, school sports days, dances and boat trips, as well as on countless other occasions. Yet despite their apparent popularity, contemporary comment published in newspapers of the day demonstrates that reactions to their performances were decidedly mixed. While some members of the public clearly enjoyed the contribution German bands made to local musical life, others were less than delighted by their (often noisy) presence. In 1893, for example, one Wellington resident complained that ‘a German Band … may be heard braying at every street corner at all hours of the day and night’, while noting also that ‘It is the genuine article, all the performers being wanderers from the “Vaterland”, unmistakeable “sauerkrauts”’ Within weeks of the outbreak of World War I, ten members of a German band had been arrested in Auckland and taken to Somes Island in Wellington harbour, where they were interned for the duration of the conflict. This article examines the New Zealand public’s changing perceptions of this particular brand of street musician from colonial times until shortly after the end of the First World War.

Nature Transformed: English Landscape Gardens and Theatrum Mundi

Nature Transformed: English Landscape Gardens and <i>Theatrum Mundi</i>

Alphonso Lisk-Carew: Imaging Sierra Leone through His Lens

In Freetown in Clarkson’s day—1792—the author gives two of the best contemporary views ... in the Freetown of 1894 one discovers the palpable dissimilitude between some of the pictures and the scenes they are said to represent. The author of the work before us declares that hardly anything has been done since Clarkson’s day and his word must stand, even if the sun has to be pressed into the service to give misleading photographs. Photographs never make mistakes ... but photographers may misrepresent! (Sierra Leone Weekly News 1894).

In the City of Gold and Silver: The Story of Begum Hazrat Mahal by Kenizé Mourad

The cover of the novel, end pages, and section title pages all feature circular designs or galaxies so we can’t forget this figure until it activates in 2025. Holly has psychic visions, hears and sometimes speaks in voices, and eventually publishes a bestseller documenting these episodes. Thus she is primed to do more than age. When transformation arrives, one’s suspension of disbelief or indulgence is severely tested. It’s two-thirds of the way through the novel, and inklings of another reality, on the periphery, suddenly shape into a new central reality. Everything both was and wasn’t what it seemed to be. It must now be explained to Holly (and the reader), a lengthy exposition that has all the excitement of a lecture hall. The subsequent battle of Manichaean forces picks up the action—confusing as it is—before a return to the normal world eighteen years later, now abnormal, with the breakdown of most nation-states. One is engaged, exasperated, reengaged, and sometimes (unexpectedly) moved. Gaps and fissures arise in time, thought, and action. A propulsive style almost effaces the coincidences that may be chance, a butterfly effect or part of a “Script.” One accepts not knowing. The title and the clock icons set at different times in each chapter suggest , at least, that wake-ups and deaths have been set. David Mitchell is one of the best storytellers around. But, as with Cloud Atlas, I rather prefer his stories when I don’t have to conceive of them as part of a unified plot. W. M. Hagen Oklahoma Baptist University Kenizé Mourad. In the City of Gold and Silver: The Story of Begum Hazrat Mahal. Anne Mathai & Marie-Louise Naville, tr. New York. Europa Editions. 2014. isbn 9781609452278 A multinational corporation controls much of Asia, Muslim insurgents are battling occupiers from the West, and the most powerful person in the world is a woman. The year? 1857. Kenizé Mourad’s latest historical novel is set during the Indian Rebellion, a conflict that spelled the end of the East India Company and the beginning of Queen Victoria’s direct rule over India. Leading the revolt in Awadh state was another queen, the brave and beautiful Begum Hazrat Mahal. In the City of Gold and Silver is her story. In Mourad’s telling, Mahal was a rebel well before the uprising began. Within the walls of the palace in Lucknow, she writes plays mocking the British and criticizes her husband the king for his policy of appeasing the acquisitive East India Company. She is an unapologetic freethinker, loathed by the other royal wives. The rebellion breaks out while the king is detained in Calcutta, so Mahal rises to the occasion: she has her son the prince made temporary ruler, and she governs the kingdom as regent. Uniting Hindus, Sunnis, and Shias, Mahal gives the British a run for their money but eventually retreats to Nepal, outgunned by her enemies and betrayed by her friends. Mourad, herself the daughter of an Indian rajah and an Ottoman princess, is well positioned to tell the tale. Her father lived in Lucknow—the city of gold and silver—and she depicts it in the manner of a native: that is to say, lovingly but unsparingly. Among Lucknow’s elite, “extreme sophistication is the rule and the most decadent elegance a virtue.” At the palace garden parties and the all-night readings of Islamic and Hindu poetry, one can taste “the most exquisite quality of life ever known.” But our heroine, Mahal, is an outsider, her courage and conviction “rare qualities indeed in Lucknow’s high society, which would tend to mock such traits.” Lucknowi culture, with its artistic splendor and religious tolerance, would never be the same after British rule. Mourad conveys the pity of it all without pitying anyone ; like her aristocratic characters, she is sensitive to condescending tones, no matter how subtle. Sometimes the story of Mahal reads like a hagiography, and sometimes the reader is taught so much history that Mahal fades into the background. As a result, she never World Literature in Review 114 wlt may / august 2015 becomes as tangible as Selma, for example, the protagonist of...

The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story by Tiya Miles (review)

Reviewed by: The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story by Tiya Miles Kimberly Welch The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story. By Tiya Miles. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010. Pp. xi, 315.) Every year thousands of tourists travel to the mountains of North Georgia to visit the Chief Vann House and walk the expansive grounds of the Diamond Hill plantation. The grand homes of the pre-Civil War South have long held the collective American imagination captive and evoke a mythic southern past of garden parties, mint juleps, and an easy life of leisure. But, as Tiya Miles reminds us in The House on Diamond Hill, "these scenes of nostalgia" obscure more than they reveal (11). After touring the historic site and attending a 2002 dedication ceremony, Miles felt compelled to ask the question, "what does this house stand for?" (xv). Indeed, Cherokee women and African-descended slaves were conspicuously absent from the Chief Vann House narratives. In The House on Diamond Hill, Tiya Miles reconstructs the history of the plantation and the multiple worlds that intersected on its grounds—African, Cherokee, and European-American. She then places Diamond Hill into the broader context of American colonization of the Cherokee (and their resistance to it) and the growth of racial slavery. At the center of the book sits James Vann, a Euro-Cherokee and the first patriarch of Diamond Hill. While most accounts of Vann—past and present—describe him as a vicious, churlish, and impulsive drunk, Miles's treatment of him is much more nuanced. Vann was a man of contradictions—shrewd, violent, and self-interested, but also principled and a fierce defender of his fellow Cherokee. Vann's demons, Miles argues, are best understood in the "context of colonialism" (38). He amassed his wealth just as the Cherokee faced increased pressure to accommodate to American encroachments. While Vann rejected some American ways, he adopted others. His inability to navigate to his satisfaction both of the worlds he simultaneously traversed likely contributed to his turbulent character. [End Page 87] Moreover, his accumulation of a vast and private fortune "set him apart" from his fellow Cherokee (60). Indeed, Vann resembled many elite white men of the slaveholding South—men who built their fortunes on the backs of black slaves and by marrying for profit. In large part, James Vann's success "depended on the subjugation" of African slaves, whose labor he exploited and Cherokee women, whose "wealth he pilfered" (55). While the complicated figure of James Vann has most captivated the imaginations Diamond Hill's visitors, his story is but one fragment of the plantation's history. One of Miles's most important contributions is her careful reconstruction of the histories of the slaves of Diamond Hill. She details the world of over one hundred enslaved men and women belonging to the Vann family. In particular, she describes the lives of four enslaved women—Caty, Grace, Pleasant, and Patience—in order to remind us that "every slave on Diamond Hill possessed a name, a life, a story" (86). Their stories represent a vital, if forgotten, part of the Diamond Hill history. The men and women owned by the Vann family were a diverse group, including American-born English speakers, recently arrived Africans, and Afro-Cherokees. The slaves of Diamond Hill created a vibrant black community and a rich "cultural identity rooted in the memory of African values and practices" (97). The indigenous Cherokee context, Miles suggests, allowed for the retention and adaptation of "African ways of life" (103). Indeed, the parallels between Cherokee culture and African cultures—such as the belief in the supernatural and the acceptance of polygamy—provided a "supportive environment" for an African-influenced slave community (103). Miles also reconstructs the histories of the Cherokee women of Diamond Hill, most notably Peggy Scott Vann, James Vann's wife. Miles uses the life of Peggy Vann to trace the ways in which American conquest displaced Cherokee gender practices and subjugated Cherokee women to Cherokee men. In the wake of the Revolutionary War, the United States made attempts to "civilize" the Cherokee by encouraging them to adopt American gender ideals. While James...

日本植民地時代における台湾林本源庭園の社交的役割に関する考察

According to the owner of a garden, it will present very different garden culture. Lin Family Garden, in Banchou built from 1888 to 1893, is the representative traditional merchant garden of Taiwan. It is also the most conserved completely garden among the 48 traditional gardens of Taiwan. The purpose of this study is to make clear the social functions of this garden as a merchant garden during the Japanese Colonization. The events held in this garden during the Japanese Colonization were distilled from the newspapers published from 1898 to 1944. And the purpose, organizer, participant, progress, and place of events held in this garden were analyzed. The results revealed that garden parties, meetings, banquets, and poem salons were held in this garden for building the affiliation with the colonization government, for supporting the local events, and for the personal companionship. Moreover, it was open for the public from 1927, it was helpful for enhancing the reputation of Lin Family. Dinchin Hall zone is the center of social life in this garden because it was the most frequently used among seven zones of this garden. It was expected that the findings of this study can realize one part of garden culture of Taiwan.

The Historian in the Rose Garden?

Fifteen years ago, Richard Neustadt and Ernest R. May wrote a series of his torical case studies that they hoped would lead to working procedures to get more history used better on the job by busy people preoccupied with daily decisions ... of management. With the publication of their book, Thinking in Time: The Uses of History for Decision-Makers, history boldly launched itself into the field of policy studies, bidding to take its place with economics, political science, and other fields that claim to present useful knowledge.1 Perhaps the fond dream of a council of historical advisors might finally come true.2 Visions of White House invitations and Rose Garden parties danced in the heads of who knows how many middle-aged historians.

SEVERITY OF ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE IN THE EAST END OF GLASGOW

A survey of 100 consecutive admissions for alcohol abuse in 1990 highlights the severity of alcohol dependence in the East End of Glasgow. The survey identifies a specific sub-group of heavy drinkers who consume strong lager, usually in open spaces, referred to locally as 'garden parties'. In the total population, males outnumbered females 3:1 with a mean consumption of 268 and 230 units of alcohol per week, respectively. The severity of alcohol abuse was reflected in their social, physical and central nervous system complications. Two-thirds of the population had a family history of alcohol abuse. Over three-quarters of the population showed self neglect with nearly half the males ascribing their marital breakdown or family neglect directly to their drinking problem. Both sexes showed a high prevalence of history of paraesthesiae, while half the male population had clear signs of peripheral neuropathy on admission. A history of delirium tremens in over 50% of the population with a history of seizures in 21% of males and 35% of females indicates central nervous system involvement. Three sub-groups were identified: history of delirium tremens, history of persecutory ideation and history of serious criminality. All three sub-groups had a shorter length of drinking with higher consumption and increased frequency of 'garden parties' than the group as a whole. This survey reinforces the need for appropriate in-patient detoxification and rehabilitation facilities for patients with severe alcohol dependence, to reduce their impact on other health, social work and criminal justice services.

An Interpretation of "Carnaval"

What would an interpretation of mean? First of all, it would be a reflection on the relations between everything about the event called Carnival that is explicit and everything about it that is implicit or hidden. We know that man is the only animal who can hide himself in his creations in such a way that his life is characterized by a curious demarcation between the things that he says, does, and reveals, in contrast at times violent to what he thinks, does not do, and keeps silent. If our dearest and most loyal friends were to know what we often think of them, friendship would probably be impossible. And we all are familiar with the incredible suffering of the man who had the misfortune to read the thoughts of his fellow villagers. Social events such as Carnival, civic festivals, sports ceremonies, and presidential inaugurations, graduations, and garden parties, and even the most rigorous religious rituals, also possess these two planes. On the explicit plane, we find the aspects relative to the rules that direct the setting up and production of the event, both as episode and social process. They are the norms that govern the ways of constructing the festivity, of giving it a form as social reality: everything that must be done concretely to bring about the ceremony or rite (I use these expressions without distinguishing between them) and that establishes its code of dress, speech, song, gesture, scenarios, characters, and the groups that should participate in it. This is fundamental because the event simply cannot take shape without a conscious awareness of these norms. Thus, there are cultural recipes for and civic rituals, for execution ceremonies (such as firing squads or hangings), and for births, for initiation rites and more routine commemorations such as weddings and Sunday lunches (which are very popular in Brazil). Just as there are rules for playing soccer, there are norms for preparing a birthday party, norms which the participants must know and dominate, both in the case of the game and in the case of the ritual. Clearly, the distinction between game and rite is complicated (as is the famous anthropological distinction between ceremony and ritual which I have questioned theoretically in another place.') Both have rules or formulas: in a game, the rules operate as fixed laws and therefore there are winners and losers, good and bad players, good and boring games, and so forth, while in the case of a ritual, the rules tend to operate not as laws but as formulas, since the owners, offi-

Impressions of Cambridge

A CORRESPONDENT writes: "Cambridge is the best of all places for the British Association to meet. There was an air of activity and exhilaration throughout the week, and the organization was carried out with extraordinary smoothness. There were almost too many receptions, dinners and garden parties ; perhaps one could wish for a little more time for those discussions behind the scenes which are the most valuable feature of these gatherings. The great novelty of the meeting was, of course, the formation of the Division for the Social and International Relations of Science. It was astonishing and encouraging to find the project so enthusiastically received by the widest variety of scientific workers. It has lit up many people's imaginations, and given them a chance to devote themselves intelligently to something which offers a hint of usefulness in an increasingly lunatic world. Perhaps the shadow of the world outside has never hung so menacingly over a scientific meeting ; many there felt that all they cared for intellectually might have vanished before long. It was noticeable that the most eager supporters of the new Division were often those whose own research happened to be particularly 'pure'. Those who complained in private that the cobbler ought to stick to his last usually turned out to be engaged on semi-applied research. It is, for example, interesting that the more abstract kind of physicists tend to be far more socially interested than people busy with traditional chemistry."

Orientalists at Oxford

NOT only was the Seventeenth International Congress of Orientalists, which was held at Oxford on Aug. 27–Sept. 1, the first meeting of that body since the War, but it was also the largest gathering that had ever taken place. It is an encouraging sign of the position of orientalists' studies at the moment that, in addition to the ordinary members, there were present two hundred official delegates, who represented the principal governments and universities of the world. Notwithstanding the fact that the meeting took place in mid-vacation, Oxford provided ample entertainment for her guests in the form of garden parties, etc. An official luncheon was given by the British Government in the hall of Christ Church on the opening day, at which Sir William Marris, member of the Council of India, presided. In welcoming the delegates he paid an eloquent tribute to the work of Sir George Grierson in the Linguistic Survey of India. A banquet was held on the evening of Aug. 31.

The Leeds Meeting of the British Association: Programmes of Sections

THE arrangements for the ninety-seventh annual meeting of the British Association are now assuming final form, and the Local Committee at Leeds is confident that the meeting will be a success. Members are assured of cordial welcome both from the City of Leed and the University, and the programme of entertainments outside the Section rooms is an attractive one. The Lord Mayor and the University are giving receptions; garden parties are arranged; while for those who take more vigorous amusement a dance will be held. On the evening of Sunday, Sept, 4, the Leeds Choral Union will give a concert in the Town Hall, to which all members are invited. The programme includes: Pianoforte Concerto (Grieg), “The Dream of Gerontius ”(Elgar).

The York Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science

THE meeting of the British Association at York from the first to the eighth of August has a peculiar historical interest in that this interestingand beautiful town was the seat of the foundation of the association seventy-five years go and was the meeting place twenty-five years ago. This time the York Philosophical Society, under whose auspices the first meeting of the association was planned in 1831, was again the host. The many points of interest in the surrounding country andin the city itself, the numerous halls and meeting places, the beautiful garden and interesting collection of the museum and the great assembly hall, all combine to make York a most attractive and suitable place for this great gathering of the best in English science. The delightful hospitality of the people of York added much to the pleasure of this particular meeting. Perhaps the most attractive of the social gatherings were garden parties given by the Archbishop of York and Mrs. Maclagan at the picturesque and historical palace af Bishopthorpe; by the Sheriff of York and Mrs. Bentley at their beautiful home at Fulford Grange, and by the Messrs. Rowntree and Company at the celebrated cocoa works, while the museum and grounds of St. Mary's Abbey were lighted up by thousands of candles on two occasions for conversazioni. At the great cathedral an organ recital and a special

The British Association

THE meeting which has just been brought to a conclusion in Bristol may fairly be regarded as a highly successful one. The weather, though at first somewhat oppressive, has been on the whole eminently favourable for garden parties, conversazioni, and excursions. The destruction of the Colston Hall by fire raised difficulties at the last moment, but the emergency arrangements of the local committee amply met the requirements of the case. Although the seating accommodation of the People's Palace is far inferior to that of the Colston Hall, its acoustic properties are greatly superior. A brilliant audience met to hear Sir William Crookes's presidential address, and the members and associates attended in large numbers to listen to the discourses of Prof. Sollas and Mr. Jackson. Prof. Sollas's lecture on Funafuti was clear, lucid, and well illustrated, while Mr. Herbert Jackson's discourse on Phosphorescence, with his admirable experiments, is universally regarded as a brilliant success. The conversazione at Clifton] College was well arranged and highly appreciated; the exhibits including a demonstration of the spectra of rare atmospheric elements by Prof. Ramsay and of wireless telegraphy, attracting large numbers, and the tastefully-lighted Close forming a pleasant promenade in the open air. The garden parties and the Saturday excursions have also gone off well. The Mayor of Bath took special trouble to make the excursion to Bath a pleasant one, and invited many members to visit the city and environs, the new excavations of the Roman Baths being especially visited and explained. Members who look forward to the meeting as a pleasant opportunity for social converse with their scientific confréres and with people of standing in the locality, have every reason to be well satisfied with the arrangements which have been made in Bristol. The old city has well maintained its tradition of hospitality. Sir William Crookes, speaking on Saturday at the banquet given by the Chamber of Commerce to distinguished visitors and guests, said that he had attended many meetings of the British Association, but could remember no occasion when the welcome accorded was more hospitable and enthusiastic, or the arrangements more carefully planned. In fact, it was agreed by all the members that the local arrangements have been a model of what such arrangements should be. The local hon. secretaries, Mr. Arthur Lee, J.P., and Dr. Bertram Rogers, have been indefatigable in their exertions, and have given nights as well as days to the work, hence everything has progressed with perfect smoothness.