JEWS WITHOUT MONEY. By Michael Gold. (Noel Douglas. 75. 6d.)—A
good book about a people not ones own makes one feel for the time as if one belonged to them. great book makes it seem a privilege to belong to them. The reader sits back, ashamed that he is not a Russian, or a German, or a Jew. However we rate Mr. Gold's novel, it cannot be said that he makes us anxious to be of its world.
" These impressions sank into my heart, as in my bad dreams during the hot Summer nights, dark Christian ogres, the size of tenements, moved all around me. They sat on my chest, and clutched my throat with slimy remorseless fingers, shrieking, Jew ! Jew ! Jew ' "
In like manner, when Mr. Gold is at his most persuasive. we shrink from the implied accusation. It is not at all pleasant, he makes clear, to be a Jew without money in the slums of New York. He tells a vigorous tale of poverty, prostitution, street accidents, heroism, and the rest, a little too well stocked With character parts. " ' But how we scratched their faces,' she chuckled grimly ; 'They will remember us girls.'" One will remember the book like that—but only for as long as the scratches last:
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