Page:The Folk-Lore Journal Volume 7 1889.djvu/363

275 THE CONGRESS OF FOLKLORISTS AT PARIS.

HE first Congress of Folklorists has been a decided success, for pleasure as well as usefulness. It began in Paris at the Trocadero on the 29th of July. There were present French, Spaniards, Italians, Russians, Poles, Finns, Swedes, Americans, and Chinese. The regrettable absence of Germans may be better understood than that England should be only represented by Transatlantic cousins.

The officers chosen for the Congress were: President, M. Charles Ploix; Vice-Presidents, Bruyère, de Rialle, Leland, Dragomanor, Nutt, Prato, Nyrop Tcheng ki Tong; Secretary, Sebillot; Assistant-Secretaries, Blemont, Rosières, Andrews, Krohn. After some formal work, the Society were shown by Dr. Hamy, the curator, the excellent French Ethnological and Anthropological Museum, containing much of interest in our studies.

The subsequent meetings were at the Mairie of the Sixth Arrondissement, near St. Sulpice. There was considerable discussion on the origin and diffusion of legends, mythological and popular.

Notwithstanding the arguments of MM. Ploix and Cesquin, the general sense of the speakers appeared to favour anthropological and polygenetic explanations.

M. Krohn described the extensive work done in Finland, presenting a collection of printed volumes on the subject. Considerable progress appears to have been made there in the analysis of Folklore.

The questions of classification, tabulation, and analysis were referred to a committee. There was hardly enough time to consider it thoroughly; many members had no definite views. The scheme of this Society was pressed by Mr. J. B. Andrews with apparent Rh