vation already mentioned. In an aggravated degree, for words are
harder to observe than visible things. Our attention is apt to be more
listless than in presence of the actual events. Our minds dwell upon
parts of the narrative to the neglect of other parts, and in the
coherent story or description that we retain in our memories,
sequences are apt to be altered and missing links supplied in
accordance with what we were predisposed to hear. Thus hearsay
evidence is subject to all the imperfections of the original observer,
in addition to the still more insidious imperfections of the second
observer.

How quickly in the course of a few such transmissions hearsay loses
all evidentiary value is simply illustrated by the game known as
Russian Scandal. One of a company, A, writes down a short tale or
sketch, and reads it to B. B repeats it to C, C to D, and so on. When
it has thus gone the round of the company, the last hearer writes
down his version, and it is compared with the original. With every
willingness to play fair, the changes are generally considerable and
significant.

Sometimes it is possible to compare an oral tradition with a
contemporary written record. In one of Mr. Hayward's Essays--"The
Pearls and Mock Pearls of History"--there are some examples of this
disenchanting process. There is, for instance, a pretty story of an
exchange of courtesies between the leaders of the French and English
Guards at the battle of Fontenoy. The tradition runs that Lord Charles
Hay stepped in front of his men and invited the French Guards to fire,
to which M. d'Auteroche with no less chivalry responded: "Monsieur, we
never fire first; you fire". What really passed we learn from a
letter from Lord Charles Hay to his mother, which happens to have
been preserved. "I advanced before our regiment, and drank to the
Frenchmen, and told them we were the English Guards, and hoped they
would stand till we came, and not swim the Scheldt as they did the
Maine at Dettingen." Tradition has changed this lively piece of
buffoonery into an act of stately and romantic courtesy. The change
was probably made quite unconsciously by some tenth or hundredth
transmitter, who remembered only part of the story, and dressed the
remainder to suit his own fancy.

The question has been raised, For how long can oral tradition be
trusted? Newton was of opinion that it might be trusted for eighty
years after the event. Others have named forty years. But if