WORKS or REFERENCE, —The Royal Blue Book : Court and Parlia-
mentary Guide. (Kelly's Directories. Gs. net..)—The January edition of this familiar work includes a complete list of the new Ministry, and in other respects is revised to the latest moment possible. A plan of London is added. The publishers state that there is a great influx of people into London, aml that furnished houses and flats were never so bard to obtain as now, owing to the war.—Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Lauded, and Official Classes for 1017 (same publishers, 15s.), which is arranged as a single alphabetical list of about thirty thousand persons, is a most useful book of short biographies, many of which are not readily to be found elsewhere. Despite the losses of the war, which at first bore most heavily on the titled and landed classes, the Handbook is .bulkier than ever. We have found it to be commendably accurate. —The Royal Navy List, or Who's Who in the Nary (Witherby and Co., 10s.) falls into two sections, a list of tho services and honours of officers during the war to December 5th last., and secondly a list of the services, honours, and special qualifications of Naval and Marine officers before the war, with some notes on ships and other information. It does not give the names of all officers serving, but within its limits it is a valuable record.—The Catholic Directory, 1917 (Burns and Oates, ls. 6d. net) is as usual very carefully compiled, and contains a great deal of interest- ing matter about Roman Catholic activities in Great Britain. The Boman Catholics in the British Empire are said to number 13,300,842, and there aro 16,564,109 in the United States. Canada has nearly three millions, and Ireland slightly more. The total for the world is given .as 301,505,940, including a number who do not practise the Latin rite. Willing's Press Guide, 1917 (J. Willing, ls.) includes in a single alphabet publications of all kinds from the "halfpenny comic " to the " Trans- actions" of learned Societies. An interesting feature is the list of existing journals dating from before 1800 ; it is headed, of course, by the Oxford Curdle of 1665 that is now the London Gazette, but the Worcester Postman of 1709 and the Nottingham Weekly Courant of 1710, which both survive tinder other names, arc the oldest of ordinary newspapers, and the Norwich Mercury of 1714 is the oldest that still appears under its original title.—The Union-Castle Company's well-known Guide to South and Bast Africa (Sampson Low, Marston, and Co., ls.) has been very thoroughly revised for the 1917 edition, and the section on what was German East. Africa contains many references to the recent. successes of General Smuts. It is an interesting and useful handbook, with some good maps.
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