BOOKS.
THIS WEEK'S BOOKS.
A Century of Work for Animals (John Murray), by Edward G. Fairholme and Wellesley Pain, is an unexpectedly good book. It is in aim a history of the R.S.P.C.A. ; there is a foreword by the Prince of Wales, and a prefatory poem by Mr. Thomas Hardy ; but it is chiefly interesting through the information it gives of social conditions and habits of thought among our not-so-remote ancestors. A hundred years ago Canning could defend bull-baiting as a most excellent amuse- ment ; " It inspired courage and produced a nobleness of sentiment and elevation of mind " ; and when a Bill was introduced for the protection of horses against cruelty, the very thought convulsed the Members of Parliament with laughter ; one of them suggested humorously that asses should be protected ; another stated that he would not be surprised now to hear a Bill for the protection of dogs proposed ; " And cats ! " shouted a third. in delirious joy. The best portrait in the book is that of Richard Martin, an impulsive, sturdy, brilliant man who devoted himself to the protection of animals, and gained the first notable successes in that arduous labour. It was his fieriness and blunt wit that brought him popularity. Once when a magistrate had given a case against him, he lost his temper completely : " Time has been," he said, " that when the brains were out the man would die."
A magnificent volume, which should appeal favourably to the R.S.P.C.A., is published by the Medici Society, Stalking Big Game with a Camera, by Marius Maxwell. It contains a series of photographs at close quarters of elephants, rhinocer- oses, giraffes, and other African animals, and should be valu- able, as the author hopes, to naturalists, sculptors, and painters. A particularly enchanting plate shows a family of African elephants with a very young tiny elephant in the centre, its huge ears apparently fresh made with a pastry-cutter.
Two volumes of short stories are published this week which deserve a wide circulation, Mr. L. P. Hartley's Night Fears (Putnam) and Mr. Osbert Sitwell's Triple Fugue (Grant ' Richards). Mr. Arnold Bennett recently described with some acuteness the typical " Sitwell behaviour " : " They issue' forth from their bright pavilions and demand trouble. And few spectacles are more touching than their, gentle, quiet, surprised, ruthless demeanour when they get it, as they generally do." Mr. Osbert Sitwell's short stories are satirical, and no doubt he is in for more trouble than he has ever had ; he scores in advance by his ingenious.preface : " I wish to warn my readers that any character attempting to recognize himself will be immediately prosecuted for libel." Mr. Hartley's stories will probably be more form-perfect and subtle : both volumes will make good reading for the holidays. Messrs. A. M. Philpot republish The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, a novel by James Hogg in the good old early nineteenth-century Satanic manner. Mr. Edgell Rick- word's study, Rimbaud, the Boy and the Poet (Heinemann), has been a long time coming out, and it is very welcome now that it appears.
Hans Vaihinger's book, The Philosophy of "As If" (Kegan Paul), is another blow, a very important one, at our tranquil acceptance of thought as a standard of actuality ; his philosophy sets out to prove that every theory is based on fiction. Messrs. Allen and Unwin send us a translation of The Divine Songs of Zarathustra, by D. J. Irain. The week's list is unusually good and varied.
Tnn LITERARY EDITOR.
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