THEIR SCRIBES AND PHARISEES.

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENTPARLIAMENTARY PILADEX—THE LATEST GAME AT WESTMINSTER.Introduced to Messrs. Balfour and Tennant by Messers. Churchill, Joynson-Hicks and Pemberton-Billing.

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT

PARLIAMENTARY PILADEX—THE LATEST GAME AT WESTMINSTER.

Introduced to Messrs. Balfour and Tennant by Messers. Churchill, Joynson-Hicks and Pemberton-Billing.

Monday, May 15th.—The continued absence of Mr.Asquithis causing much speculation in the Lobbies. Will the new Irish Privy Councillor come back from Dublin, like LordBeaconsfieldfrom Berlin, bringing peace with honour in his pack? Or will he, as so many British statesmen have done before, find the inherited hostility of Irishmen to one another an insuperable obstacle? An hon. and learned Nationalist was not encouraging. "When," he was asked, "were the seeds of this trouble sown?" "WhenSthrongbowcame to Ireland," was the answer. "And when do you think it will be over?" persisted the questioner. "When the world's at an end."

Last Session Mr.Kingwas easily the champion of Question-time. But this year, thanks to the Sinn Feiners, Mr.Ginnellis coming up with a rush. Mr.Kinghas however one consolation. Mr.Ginnellrarely extracts much information from Ministers; often it is nothing more than "There is no foundation for the allegation contained in the question." Whereas his rival, whose queries cover a much wider field, frequently elicits important facts. Like the rest of the world he has been puzzled by the coloured tabs now so commonly seen on officers' tunics. What did they mean? Mr.Tennantfor once was communicative. "I think," he said, "green stands for intelligence." Mr.Kingis now more regretful than ever that he is over military age; the green badge would just suit his mental complexion.

Ever since the Military Service Bill came under discussion the public galleries have been full of men in khaki. As it seems difficult to believe that their presence is due to the intrinsic fascination of debates, which have been for the most part insufferably dull, another theory has been started. Should the opponents of the Bill become too obstructive and threaten its passage, will these doughty warriors leap over the barriers, drop down on to the floor of the House (in the manner already made historic this Session) and execute a new "Pride'sPurge"?

A rather unkind trick was played upon the Simonites by Mr.Barnes. He has a good deal of influence with the Government nowadays, and when he delivered an eloquent defence of conscientious objectors, describing them as the men who kept the spiritual fires burning, there were high hopes that he was going to secure an enlargement of the loopholes in the Bill. But as he went on to explain that his remarks only applied to genuine cases and had nothing to do with the shoal of frauds who had discovered a conscience within the last month or two, the enthusiasm below the Gangway fell so suddenly that you could almost hear it drop.

Tuesday, May 16th.—To invite the House of Lords to go in for daylight saving is rather like carrying coals to Newcastle. The Peers habitually set an excellent example in this respect. No matter what the importance of the subject under consideration they almost invariably manage to conclude its discussion before the dinner-hour.

Some of LordLansdowne'sfriends are beginning to fear that association with wicked Radicals like LordCreweis having a deteriorating effect upon his political faith. They were shocked to hear him allude almost disparagingly to the innate conservatism of the national temperament, which put Greenwich mean time on the same level as the Thirty-nine Articles. He even spoke disrespectfully of the sun, to the marked disapproval of that other shining light, LordSalisbury.

In the Commons the Simonites made a determined effort to get the minimum age raised from 18 to 19. But Mr.Longwas obdurate, though he promised that, subject to exceptional military necessity, no conscript should be sent abroad till he was 19. Eventually the Bill passed its Third Reading by 250 to 35.

A characteristically bitter speech from Mr.Snowdenevoked an appropriate retort from SirArthur Markham. Observing that the Hon. Member had been against the War throughout, he charged him with "making vitriolic speeches and dropping acid drops in every direction." Mr.Snowden(remembering the case of Mr.John Burns) may think himself lucky if he is not known as "The Acid Drop" for the rest of his political career.

Wednesday, May 17th.—The Summer Time Bill passed into law to-day, in spite of the gloomy prognostications of LordBalfour of Burleigh. He foresaw the time when the Committee of Privileges might be called upon to pronounce a new judgment ofSolomonon the question whether a peerage should go to a boy born at 2.50A.M.on October 1st or to his twin-brother, born actually half-an-hour later, but according to statutory time half-an-hour before.

While the Lords were illuminating the daylight the Commons were engaged in ventilating the air. The present administration of the Flying Services was severely criticised by Mr.Joynson-Hicks, who wanted an Air Minister—not LordCurzon, but "someone with a reputation to lose." Mr.Tennantpromptly announced that the ex-Viceroy of India would be President of the new Air Board.

ColonelChurchilllaunched into a lengthy history of the Air Services, from which we gathered that but for the exertions of a former First Lord, who used to divert money voted for hospitals and coastguard stations to the building of aeroplanes, the country would have had no aerial defences when the War broke out. He joined in the demand for an Air Ministry. In fact, he had himself proposed it to thePrime Ministera year ago. It is possible that he even indicated a suitable person to fill the post.

Before the War it was sometimes said of LordHugh Cecilthat his Parliamentary speeches were too much up in the clouds. Since he has taken to exploring those regions as a member of the Royal Flying Corps, that criticism no longer applies. In a severely practical speech he flatly contradicted the accusations that had been made against our Air Service, and boldly claimed that it was the most efficient in the world.

After that, Mr.Bonar Lawhad a comparatively easy task in persuading the House to give the new Air Board a fair trial. In reference to the fears that had been expressed as to the powers to be accorded to its President he drily remarked that from his experience in the Cabinet he did not think LordCurzonwould be found lacking in personality.

All through the afternoon Mr.Pemberton-Billinghad been popping up with questions, interjections and points of order. Now he rose to continue the debate, but Members had apparently had enough of him for one day. After a few minutes he suffered the most inglorious fate that can befall a Parliamentary crusader. One by one his audience melted away, until there was not enough left to make a House. "P. B." was counted out.

Thursday, May 18th.—LordLansdowneat least is not afraid of the new Order in Council prohibiting reference to Cabinet proceedings. In answer to complaints of the delay in introducing Compulsory Service he told the old story of the widow who married a widower, and complained to a friend that "hischildren are always fighting withmychildren and frighteningourchildren." That, he implied, was what went on in the Coalition.

The Commons enjoyed a pretty little duel between two old friends. Ex-ProfessorHewinsdelivered a long lecture on elementary economics, leading up to the conclusion that we could not beat the Germans without an immediate dose of Tariff Reform. The House, expecting an equally solemn defence of Free Trade from theChancellor of the Exchequer, was at once surprised and delighted when Mr.Chamberlainrose to reply.

Though tied to the Tariff movement "by my heart-strings as well as by my head," he thought it would be imprudent to embark on it at this moment. After the War it would very likely meet with general consent. Mr.Hewinsmust have felt likeAlicewith "jam yesterday, and jam to-morrow, but never jam to-day."

DIGNITY AND IMPUDENCE;Or, The Rival Commissionaires.

DIGNITY AND IMPUDENCE;

Or, The Rival Commissionaires.

"Recollect that night—you an' me an' ole Turniptops wiv 'is mouth-organ in the Whitechapel Road?""Not 'arf I don't.""Well, 'ow did that tune go?"

"Recollect that night—you an' me an' ole Turniptops wiv 'is mouth-organ in the Whitechapel Road?"

"Not 'arf I don't."

"Well, 'ow did that tune go?"

[It is reported that the citizens of Berlin are agitated about the serious difficulty that has arisen with regard to the removal of dust. A Berlin journal has championed their cause.]

I love to catch such bits of local colourAs hide awhile the lurid hues of war,And paint the fatuous Hun an even dullerFool than we took him for.I love to seize on every source of humourThat gives black care a very welcome shove—I like, I mean to say, the sort of rumourRecited up above.Berlin, you see, has grown of late so grittyThat half the pop. is troubled to the quick,Finding the dust of that unwholesome cityIs just a bit too thick.Well, I have read about some other grumblersWith curious similarity of soulWho left untouched the gnats that thronged their tumblers,But drank their camels whole.So here your Hun, denouncing this conditionOf his uncleanly city's upper crust,Flatly declines to have his earthly visionClogged with material dust,Yet, all unconscious of the draught he's taking,Swallows the stuff in pharisaic wiseWith which his rulers have for years been makingA dustbin of his eyes.

I love to catch such bits of local colourAs hide awhile the lurid hues of war,And paint the fatuous Hun an even dullerFool than we took him for.

I love to seize on every source of humourThat gives black care a very welcome shove—I like, I mean to say, the sort of rumourRecited up above.

Berlin, you see, has grown of late so grittyThat half the pop. is troubled to the quick,Finding the dust of that unwholesome cityIs just a bit too thick.

Well, I have read about some other grumblersWith curious similarity of soulWho left untouched the gnats that thronged their tumblers,But drank their camels whole.

So here your Hun, denouncing this conditionOf his uncleanly city's upper crust,Flatly declines to have his earthly visionClogged with material dust,

Yet, all unconscious of the draught he's taking,Swallows the stuff in pharisaic wiseWith which his rulers have for years been makingA dustbin of his eyes.

A Nursery View.

Last Sunday morning an hour was lost. The children had been discussing the question beforehand.

"Where will it go?" asked one.

"I suppose the fairies will take it," said Joyce.

"Perhaps it will go behind the clock," said another.

"Well, I'll tell you what I'd like to do," said Joyce deliberately. "I'd like to get up in the middle of the night, when the hour is going to be lost, and put on my dressing-gown without waking Nannie, and go out into the garden and see for myself how they lose it. It's sure to be about somewhere."

"You couldn't," said one of the others. "Nannies always sleep so that they wake up at once if you move. You'd never get up without her knowing."

"Well, why do they want to lose it?" asked Joyce, realising that the last argument was unanswerable and so darting off on to a new train of thought altogether.

"Because they'll save a lot of other hours that way. And then, you see, if we get up earlier we shan't have to pay the pennies for gas and electric light, and all those pennies can go to help Daddy win the War."

"Yes, but where will the hour be gone?"

And so we came back to the beginning again.

There, was a long pause.

"Well," concluded Joyce, on a note of finality, "it's a very good plan anyway."

That settled it.

"Westminster Gazette" Contents Bill.

But in justice to the lateChief Secretaryit should be said that the Sinn Feiners also had a hand in it.

P.C. O'Leary."Move on there, and don't be obsthructing the thoroughfare!"Interested Spectator."Wot 'arm am I doin' of?"P.C. O'Leary."Sure if every wan wos to stand in the wan place, how would the rest go by?"

P.C. O'Leary."Move on there, and don't be obsthructing the thoroughfare!"

Interested Spectator."Wot 'arm am I doin' of?"

P.C. O'Leary."Sure if every wan wos to stand in the wan place, how would the rest go by?"

A Word of Advice to New Officers.

How delicate must be the young man's dealingsWith those who hold the regimental reins;How sensitive he finds the Major's feelings,How constantly the Adjutant complains;Yet any youth of reasonable phlegmShould be at ease with some at least of them,But, mind you, there is only one Q.M.,And he, I think, requires the greatest pains.For he provides his own peculiar terrors,His own pet penalties, his special scores;He little recks your mere strategic errors,He marks unmoved the feeblest kind of fours;'Tis naught to him how Private Thompson shoots,Only he must not wear civilian boots;And all the officers may act like brutesIf they commit no sin against the Stores.Then, like the octopus, that all day dalliesIn loathly caverns, loving not the sun,Till prying trespassers provoke his sallies,He waddles forth and gives the culprit one;Unrolls, like tentacles, by fold and pleat,Some hoary form, some long-forgot receipt,And stamps the fellow liar, thief and cheat—There is no argument; the man is done.And evermore, however slight the caper,His name, his credit in the Stores is black;If he but supplicate for emery-paper,Or seek small articles his soldiers lack,He will be lucky if they fail to lookHis record up in some avenging book,And say, "I thought as much—the man who tookA bar of soap and never brought it back."Be careful, then, and court the man's compassion;Note how the gods, in old Olympian years,Would woo Hephaestus's, that used to fashionStout shields and suchlike for his godly peers;How upstart deities, who feared not ZeusAnd gave Poseidon something like abuse,Approached him sweetly and were quite profuse,Lest he be cross and serve them out no spears.Nor in the trenches should your tact diminish,For there, still stern with casual issue notes,Hewill determine when the food must finish,And stint his rum to undeserving throats;And what if in some struggle he should say,"Look here, this battle can't go on to-day;You'll get no hand-grenades, no S.A.A.,Till Simpson signs for all those overcoats"?

For he provides his own peculiar terrors,His own pet penalties, his special scores;He little recks your mere strategic errors,He marks unmoved the feeblest kind of fours;'Tis naught to him how Private Thompson shoots,Only he must not wear civilian boots;And all the officers may act like brutesIf they commit no sin against the Stores.

Then, like the octopus, that all day dalliesIn loathly caverns, loving not the sun,Till prying trespassers provoke his sallies,He waddles forth and gives the culprit one;Unrolls, like tentacles, by fold and pleat,Some hoary form, some long-forgot receipt,And stamps the fellow liar, thief and cheat—There is no argument; the man is done.

And evermore, however slight the caper,His name, his credit in the Stores is black;If he but supplicate for emery-paper,Or seek small articles his soldiers lack,He will be lucky if they fail to lookHis record up in some avenging book,And say, "I thought as much—the man who tookA bar of soap and never brought it back."

Be careful, then, and court the man's compassion;Note how the gods, in old Olympian years,Would woo Hephaestus's, that used to fashionStout shields and suchlike for his godly peers;How upstart deities, who feared not ZeusAnd gave Poseidon something like abuse,Approached him sweetly and were quite profuse,Lest he be cross and serve them out no spears.

Nor in the trenches should your tact diminish,For there, still stern with casual issue notes,Hewill determine when the food must finish,And stint his rum to undeserving throats;And what if in some struggle he should say,"Look here, this battle can't go on to-day;You'll get no hand-grenades, no S.A.A.,Till Simpson signs for all those overcoats"?

"A Minister's Wives' Meeting will be held at Whitefield's, Tottenham Court Road."

"Hurrah!" I said, "I've got a letter from the Front."

"Well done!" said Francesca. "Who's it from?"

"From Walter. It's not a very long one."

"That doesn't matter a bit. The great thing is to have one from the Front, even if it's only to thank you for a pair of socks."

"Mine's better than that," I said. "It runs into nearly two pages."

"Yes," she said, "but it doesn't tell you much, now does it?"

"No, to tell you the truth it doesn't. They're under an honourable obligation, you know, not to reveal things."

"Poor boys! It isn't much a Second-Lieutenant could reveal, is it. There's nothing said in your letter about SirDouglas Haighaving called Walter up to Headquarters——"

"You mustn't say Headquarters; you must say G.H.Q. if you want to impress people."

"I'm not talking to people; I'm talking to you. There's nothing said in your letter, is there, about Walter having been asked by SirDouglas Haigto draw up a plan for the Big Push?"

"No, there isn't; but Walter would draw up a dozen if he were asked. He's that sort."

"Don't talk about my first cousin once removed in that flippant way."

"I'm not."

"You are, and it's most ungrateful of you."

"Ungrateful?"

"Yes, ungrateful. He's written you a letter that you'll be able to chat about for a fortnight. I can hear you mentioning it to your train-friends, Major Boger and Dr. Apthorpe. You'll bring it in in a careless kind of way. 'I've had a letter,' you'll say, 'from a chap at the Front, a cousin of my wife's, and he tells me they're expecting a move now at any moment.' Then they'll both say, 'Ah,' as if they didn't think much of your chap, and each of them will produce a chap of his own with some highly private information about theCrown Princehaving been taken to a lunatic asylum in a motor-car so heavily iron-clad that nobody could see who was inside, but he was recognised by his shrieks; and Dr. Apthorpe will cap it all with some cock-and-bull story about German ships having bombarded one another in the Canal last week. And so you'll get to London."

"Francesca," I said, "you are a holy terror. How do you know all these things? You have never travelled to London with Major Boger and Dr. Apthorpe, and yet you're able to misrepresent them as if you'd heard them speak every day of your life. It's wonderful."

"Clever fellow," said Francesca; "we won't pursue the question of your boastings. They're innocent enough, I dare say. Let me hear what Walter actually does say in his letter."

"Well," I said, "he doesn't actually say very much. The weather is fine, he says, and his particular lot have been having rather a slack time lately. There was a stampede of horses last week, but his Battery was not involved in it, and would I mind sending him a packet or two of chocolate, some strong brown boot-laces and a briar-root pipe, he having broken his last one, and he's never felt fitter in his life, and anybody who wants to know what health is had better come out to France at once. That's about all; but you can read it for yourself." I handed it over to her and she skimmed through it.

"I'll tell you what," she said, "I strongly advise you not to show this letter about."

"I certainly shall show it," I said, "but only to friends."

"Well," she said, "I wouldn't even do that, unless you want to get Walter into trouble."

"What nonsense!" I said. "It's the most discreet and honourable letter I ever received.".

"Yes," she said, "but it's so cheerful. If certain newspapers got hold of it there wouldn't be any peace for Second-Lieutenant Walter Carlyon. He'd be told he was like all other Englishmen—he didn't take a serious view of the War. Then they'd say that he was one of the men who were responsible for the French not understanding us, and for the Russians failing to appreciate our efforts, which, indeed, could hardly be called efforts at all, and for the Italians despising us as we deserved to be despised for tolerating such a Government as we were afflicted with—and lots more of the same sort, all because poor Walter doesn't go about in a state of perpetual gloom, as if he expected the whole of Great Britain to be sunk into the sea the next minute."

"Francesca," I said, "your warmth is excusable, and there's a good deal in what you say, but I shall show Walter's letter all the same."

"Well," she said, "when the storm bursts I shall let him know whom he's got to thank for it."

"I shall write to him," I said, "and warn him to write a really pessimistic letter next time, so that I may show it to influential people and get his name up."

"It'll be no good," she said. "Walter isn't one of that sort. He 's cursed with a profound and unreasoning belief in his country, and, being an Englishman, he'll go to his grave if necessary believing that England is bound to win the War."

"And, by Jove," I said, "I thoroughly agree with him."

"Yes," she said, "and so do I, but it doesn't do to say so to everybody nowadays."

R. C. L.

As I was a-walking on Chilbolton DownI saw an old farmer there driving to town,A-jogging to market behind his old grey,So I jumped up beside him, and thus he did say:—"My boy he be fightin', a fine strappin' lad,I gave he to England, the one boy I had;My boy he be fightin' out over the foam,An' here be I frettin' an' mopin' at home."But if there be times when 'tis just about hardWi'out his strong arm in the field an' the yard,Why, I plucks my old heart up an' flicks the old grey,An' this is the tune that her heels seem to say:—"'Oh the hoof an' the horn, the roots an' the corn,The flock in the fold an' the pigs in the pen,Rye-grass an' clover an' barns brimmin' over,They feed theKing'shorses an' feed theKing'smen!'"Then I looks at my furrows to see the corn springLike little green sword-blades all drawn for theKing;An' 'tis 'Get up, old Bess, there be plenty to doFor old chaps like me an' old horses like you."'My boy be in Flanders, he's young an' he's bold,But they will not have we, lass, for we be too old,So step it out lively an' kip up your heart,For you an' me, Bess, be a-doin' our part—"'Wi' the shocks an' the sheaves, the lambs an' the beeves,The ducks an' the geese an' the good speckled hen,The cattle all lowin', the crops all a-growin',To feed theKing's horses and feed theKing's men.'"

As I was a-walking on Chilbolton DownI saw an old farmer there driving to town,A-jogging to market behind his old grey,So I jumped up beside him, and thus he did say:—

"My boy he be fightin', a fine strappin' lad,I gave he to England, the one boy I had;My boy he be fightin' out over the foam,An' here be I frettin' an' mopin' at home.

"But if there be times when 'tis just about hardWi'out his strong arm in the field an' the yard,Why, I plucks my old heart up an' flicks the old grey,An' this is the tune that her heels seem to say:—

"'Oh the hoof an' the horn, the roots an' the corn,The flock in the fold an' the pigs in the pen,Rye-grass an' clover an' barns brimmin' over,They feed theKing'shorses an' feed theKing'smen!'

"Then I looks at my furrows to see the corn springLike little green sword-blades all drawn for theKing;An' 'tis 'Get up, old Bess, there be plenty to doFor old chaps like me an' old horses like you.

"'My boy be in Flanders, he's young an' he's bold,But they will not have we, lass, for we be too old,So step it out lively an' kip up your heart,For you an' me, Bess, be a-doin' our part—

"'Wi' the shocks an' the sheaves, the lambs an' the beeves,The ducks an' the geese an' the good speckled hen,The cattle all lowin', the crops all a-growin',To feed theKing's horses and feed theKing's men.'"

THE GREAT GAME.Subaltern (wounded four times at Gallipoli, about to rejoin after four months' sick leave)."Can I Get a Trench Dagger Here?"Shopwalker."Trench dagger? Certainly, Sir. You'll get that in the Sports Department."

THE GREAT GAME.

Subaltern (wounded four times at Gallipoli, about to rejoin after four months' sick leave)."Can I Get a Trench Dagger Here?"

Shopwalker."Trench dagger? Certainly, Sir. You'll get that in the Sports Department."

(By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks.)

Except by keen politicians the fourth volume of MrBuckle'sLife of Benjamin Disraeli(Murray) may be found a little dull in comparison with its predecessors. That is not the fault of the biographer, who has done his best with a vast mass of somewhat dry material, but could not make this portion of his record so enthralling as that which preceded it or—we may confidently hope—that which will follow it. In 1855Disraelihad arrived at respectability, but had not yet attained power. The Conservative Party recognised that he was indispensable, but continued to withhold its full confidence, with the result that, although his brain still teemed with the great schemes formed in his hot youth, he had to defer their practical accomplishment and to devote himself to educating his party and its titular leader, LordDerby, for the day when the swing of the pendulum might give it a majority in the House of Commons. Only one great triumph came to him during these years in the wilderness.Disraelihad never visited India, but, owing perhaps to his Eastern ancestry, he had a truer intuition of Oriental needs than most contemporary statesmen; and it was fortunate that it fell to him in 1858, during one of the brief periods when the Conservatives held office on sufferance, to carry the Bill which transferred the government of India from "John Company" to the Crown. The principles which he then laid down, and which eighteen years later he carried a stage further in the Imperial Titles Act, justify Mr.Bucklein claiming the Coronation Durbar of 1911 as "the logical conclusion of Disraeli's policy." Apart from this one episode the volume is mainly concerned with the reconstruction of the Conservative party—"at about the pace of a Tertiary formation"—with whichDisraeli'svoluminous correspondence with LordDerbywas mainly concerned. Happily he had other correspondents, and, though too self-conscious to be a perfect letter-writer, he could be playful enough when writing to his wife or to Mrs.Brydges-Williams. In this volume Mr.Bucklehas given us a careful portrait of the PoliticianDisraeli; in his next we look to see a little more of the Man.

It is probable, I think, that you will not have turned many pages ofBrenda Walks On(Hutchinson) before being struck by a certain pleasing incongruity between its matter and style. SirFrederick Wedmoreis such an artist in words, so punctilious in the niceties of their employment, that to find him writing a story of modern stage-life, and using for it—with, as it were, a certain delicate deliberation—phrases peculiar to the jargon of the class of which it treats, gives one a series of small shocks. It is like hearing slang from a Dean. As a matter of fact, though, I was wrong in callingBrenda Walks Ona story. It is rather a disquisition about stage people, stage art and life, and anything else whatever upon which SirFrederickwishes to talk at the moment, from the beauties of the North-Eastern coast (the Scarborough part of the book carried me back to the far-off days ofRenunciations) to the treasures of Hertford House. EvenBrenda'schief suitor is capable of breaking off the avowal of his love to deliver a few well-chosen remarks about theatricalrents and the hazards of management. This suitor,Penfold, is perhaps the nearest approach to an actual character that the book contains. He was a writer of papers upon the drama of whom the author observes, "With a ready pen, indeed, Heaven forbid that he should have been cursed! It was better to have a careful one, faithfully ordered, allowing him to make sensible utterance of some part of the knowledge and thought that were in him." Which, by a happy coincidence, is exactly my verdict author's method in this graceful causerie.

Christina's Son(Wells Gardner) is a disarming book. It overcomes criticism by the direct simplicity of its attack, in which only later do you begin to suspect a concealed art. MissW. M. Lettstells a tale that (you might say) has nothing in it; nothing certainly at all sensational or strikingly original. But this story of a middle-class North-country woman grips the attention, and holds it, by some quality hard to define.Christina, as wife of a man she can never greatly love, and, later, as mother of a son whom she adores but only half understands, becomes, for all her commonplace environment, a figure that dwells in the memory because of what you feel to be its absolute truth. The atmosphere of the story is so crystal clear that every detail of its chief characters stands out with the distinctness of a landscape after rain. And because, by all the rules, these characters should be so little interesting, and the very provincial society in which the thirty or so years of the book pass is so entirely undistinguished, you are faintly astonished all the way through (at least I was) at not being bored. I see that one critic has praised a previous story by MissLettsfor its humour, should not have picked this out as a characteristic ofChristina's Son. Rather has it a certain gravity and sobriety of aim, which in part explains its appeal; if there is humour it is generally below the surface and never insisted upon. There is a moment when its rather restrained style rises suddenly to rare beauty, where the theme is old age; and throughout there is a maturity of judgment in the writing that will make it perhaps less attractive to the young than to those whose outlook has reached the same stage.

A favourite of the halls was greatly pleased with the new poster of himself——until he came to a hoarding where the exigencies of space had played havoc with the composition.

A favourite of the halls was greatly pleased with the new poster of himself——

until he came to a hoarding where the exigencies of space had played havoc with the composition.

If I were to give away the plot of MissMary L. Pendered'sThe Secret Sympathy(Chapman and Hall) I think that you would sniff. It is not likely to cause animated discussion in intellectual circles. We are introduced to a girl who, finding herself reduced from affluence to poverty, takes a garage and runs it with success, and we become acquainted with a chauffeur and a peer, and the former turns out to be—but that is just what I am not going to tell you. If you want a book in which the hero is a very perfect gentleman indeed and the villain really is a villain, then here you are. MissPendered'sscheme is not too subtle, but what she has set out to do she has done, and done well. Although her characters play their part in the War, she resists the temptation to smother them with V.C.'s and other decorations, and for this abstinence and forMiss Chetwynd, a middle-aged spinster of shrewd sense and humour, I warmly commend her. I confess myself in love withMiss Chetwyndand should dearly like to hear her candid opinion ofThe Secret Sympathy. But I feel sure that, if she smiled a little at the wonderfulness of it all, her final verdict would be as benevolent as mine.

Mr.Richard Maher'sThe Shepherd of the North(Macmillan) looks a little like one of those rather elaborate Catholic tracts in form of a novel of which we have so many classic examples.Mgr. Winthrop, the Bishop of Alden, way up in the Adirondacks, was indeed a noble old fellow, somewhat given to long speeches, but with a great heart in the right place, and wise and tolerant withal. He was known and loved by the small farmers and lumber-men asThe White Horse Chaplainfor a deed of valour done in his youth in the Civil War. And he carried that high quality of courage into his work of defending his people against the machinations of the U. & M. Railroad, which swept down upon them and stuck at nothing, not arson on a Teuton scale or judicial murder, to get the prize it was after—valuable iron ore in the hills through which its track ran. However, it was the Bishop's oar, dexterously thrust in, which finally won the victory. There is a point which puzzles me considerably. The crisis of the story turns on the secret of the Confessional. A young man is accused of murder, and the Bishop, his friend, has heard the confession of the real murderer, so that his lips are sealed. But his fiancée also unwittingly overheard the essential of the confession screamed by the dying man. Mr.Maherseems to think her bound by the same sacred ties as the Bishop, even to the point of allowing her lover to go to the chair because of her silence. But is that sound moral theology? I should doubt it. I ought to add that there's nothing to shock the most sensitive evangelical conscience, and quite a good deal to edify, instruct and entertain.

Overheard at a fashionable restaurant:—

1st Guest.I read in one of the Sunday papers thatBenjamin Franklindiscovered the Daylight Saving Bill by noticing that the sun shines the moment it rises, and not several hours afterwards, as is popularly supposed.

2nd Guest.How interesting! By the way,Franklin'sbody has never been found since he discovered the North Pole.

3rd Guest.No, poor fellow, althoughStanleywent in search of him.

1st Guest (correcting).He found him right enough, butFranklinpreferred to stop where he was. Rough onStanley.

Transcriber's Note:Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.

Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.

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