22 MARCH 1935, Page 46

JESUS WEPT The Psalms for Modern Life, the first instalment

of Mr. Arthur Wragg's indictment of modern society, achieved a well-deserved popularity, and there is little doubt that this sequel (Selwyn and Blount, 7s. 6d.) will be as widely studied. 'This collection consists of about forty drawings, simply and powerfully executed in black and white, with the recurrent theme that, as Mr. Vernon Bartlett says in his introduction, "men live surrounded by tragedies and injustices for which they are themselves responsible and which they could prevent had they the will to do so." Most of the drawings are bitterly satirical, and illustrate various forms of political or social abuses and inequalities with a directness and a pungency that is sometimes extremely moving. Other drawings are tender, Nit by implication challenge complacency with an equal force. It is a mistake to claim too much for the technical achievement of Mr. Wragg's drawings, which lack something of the vision and the, ability to-create-and light up a new-world which is a characteristic of great art, but as the posters of a sincere rays/net directed at the heart and conscience of 1935 they achieve all that one can demand of them,