11 JANUARY 1908, Page 30

Mid Pleasures and Palaces. By Mary Landon. (T. Fisher Unwin.

6s.)—We do not quite know whether this is a book of travel or a novel. There has recently appeared a hybrid of this kind, and hybrids, as we all know, may have many excellent qualities,—are not we English hybrids ? " Gyp " and "Gyp's? mother, Cousin Mary, and the teller of the tale go to Siam, and then, scared away by cholera, pass on to Japan. They see much that is very interesting to read about in Siam, and still more in Japan. " Gyp's " arguments about the status of woman with the Japanese gentleman Tokimoto is one of the many amusing things that we find in Mid Pleasures and Palaces. It is not a book which one can foemally criticise. Let it suffice to say that wherever we may open it we are sure to find something to interest.