17 MARCH 1900, Page 19

The Transvaal in War and Peace. By Neville Edwards. (H,

Virtue and Co. 7s. 6d. net.)—This volume ought to be a success. It does not pretend to give an account of the Transvaal troubles, their causes and their remedies, from the point of view of the philosopher or the statesman, but it is full of facts, facts. about persons and places, of the past and the present. And there is an abundance of illustration which bring these facts as far as the conditions of space permit under our eyes. The text is some- what of a jumble. On p. 27, for instance, Mr. Edwards passes, by one bound, from a Boer ox-waggon (where there is one un- lucky beast nicknamed Engelschman ' that gets the worst of the blows) to the provisioning of the ' Braemar Castle ; ' but this matters little. Wherever we are, we find something interesting to read, and more that is interesting to look at. There are more than two hundred portraits of individuals, and nearer two hundred than one hundred groups, with landscapes, views of towns, &c. We hope that the idea of regimental histories will be exten- sively carried out. Here we have three out of five:volumes which are to be devoted to the narrative of the achievements of the Derbyshire Regiment under the general title of the " Derbyshire Campaign Series" (Swan Sonnenschein and Co., ls. 6d. net per voL) These are The 95th (Derbyshire) Regiment in Central India, by General Sir Julius Raines (this is a narrative of the Mutiny) ; The 2nd Battalion Derbyshire Regiment in the Sikkim Expedition of 1888, by Captain H. A. Iggulden ; and The 2nd Battalion Derby- shire Regiment in Tirah (1897-8), by Captain A. K. Slessor. Here, by the way, we see the advantage of the territorial system. It links on a newly raised battalion to an inheritance of fame.