14 MAY 1927, Page 43

STRAPHANGERS. By Arnold Palmer. (Selwyn and Blount. Os.)—" If the

people you meet in these pages were all put into one 'bus, the conductor would certainly congratulate himself on having so normal a complement, and on his escape, for one journey at least, from the usual eccentric bore." Mr. Palmer, who writes these words in a preface to twenty-live little talks with "ordinary Londoners " .--Engine Drivers, Mannequins, River Pilots—thus kindly assists us to review his own hook : he says just what we should have said ourselves. These " straphangers " are normal characters, and Mr. Palmer, who is a competent journalist, and can be entertaining, has interviewed them in a perfectly normal way. It is not quite so easy as it sounds.