On the Queen's Errands. By Captain Philip Wynter. (Sir Isaac
Pitman and Sons. 10s. 6d. net.)—Captain Wynter tells us about Oxford, where he was born—his father was Vice- Chancellor at the crisis of the Tractarian movement —about India, where he served between the years 1857-1865, and about various places in Europe whither his business as Queen's Messenger took him. Considerations of health compelled him to give up India, and after a very brief experience as factory inspector—he does not seem to have ever visited a factory either officially or unofficially — had the post of Messenger given to him. There is nothing very remarkable about the narrative in which he relates his experi- ences. Still, it takes us into certain bypaths of history, and is not without interest. He gives praise to the liberality of the Foreign Office, though it rebelled against a charge of 215 for an escort of Cossacks by a Supernumerary employed during the Russo-Turkish War,—he had to be protected in crossing the Danube. He complains that Lord Salisbury was not too con- siderate; and brings up an old Crimean War grievance when a douceur of 2500, given by custom to the messenger who brought tidings of a Treaty of Peace, was given by the Premier or Foreign Secretary to his private secretary. Might we suggest that he should have been quite certain which of the two was to blame before relating the anecdote ? Captain Wynter's most exciting experience was in 1871, when he was "several times in Paris when governed by the Communards "; but he has nothing special to relate. Two of his later chapters he devotes to Oxford. He thinks that " the undergraduates of fifty years ago presented a far more decent and respectable appearance than those of the present day." Whatever their appearance may have been—and it must be allowed that the High Street dandies of those days have left no successors—their morals were certainly less "decent and respectable." In fact, all academical sorts and conditions are improved. At St. John's, for instance, in those days the dons neglected the not very onerous duty of dining in Hall. They preferred the comfort of the Common Room.
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