13 JULY 1918, Page 16

The Amazing City. By John F. Macdonald. (Grant Richards. 8s.

6d. net.)—This is a further selection, with a Preface by Mrs. Frederika Macdonald, from the late Mr. J. F. Macdonald's sketches of Parisian life, contributed between 1907 and 1913 to London newspapers and reviews. These papers are all very readable and amusing, especially the descriptions of the first night of M. Rostand's Chantecler, of the " siege of Fort Chabrol," and of the electricians' strike in Paris, and also the accounts of ordinary middle-class life. Mr. Macdonald, for all his apparent frivolity, had a genuine understanding of the French character, and appreciated its solid virtues far better than some more pre- tentious foreign observers. It is pleasant to look back, through his eyes, at Paris before the war.