Shorter Notices
Guttersnipe. By Sam Shaw. (Sampson Low. 12s. 6d.)
THE author of this autobiography began life in one of the poorest quarters of Birmingham ; at the age of ten tramped to London with his family ; was arrested for selling 'ranches ;- was for more than three years at Feltham Industrial School ; worked on Welsh farms and for many years in Welsh mines ; developed lung-trouble and spent some months in a sanatorium, and ends his tale during an air-raid in the Midlands. It is not often that people with Mr. Shaw's type of experience have the ability to write a book, and this is a much-needed revelation of how the very poor live—with hunger, separations and ill health. Poverty and lack of opportunity are devastatingly hereditary. Mr. Shaw's father suffered from eye- trouble and so the boy had no education after about nine. He himself later, through ill health, had to withdraw his own son from a secondary school. The outstanding part of the book is an account of Feltham School—a purgatory of discomfort, repression and bore- dom. Fortunately it was closed by the L.C.C. in 1908. But Mr. Shaw suffered in other ways ; he is bitter against trade unions. His artlessly-told tale is a demonstration of how there is one world for the rich and another for the poor. Sir Bertrand Watson contributes a short foreword.
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