24 AUGUST 1912, Page 23

To - Day. By Percy White. (Constable and Co. 6s.)—Mr. Percy White's

new novel is a delicately conceived satire. It is told in the first person, and it will be some little time before the reader discovers what a despicable figure the William Orr, who tells the story, really is. The whole of the latter part of the book is concerned with Suffrage demonstrations, and Mr. White writes in obvious sympathy with the movement. It is a little difficult to understand what connexion there is between the Suffrage move- ment and the heroine's views on matrimony. Her union with a man who has a mad wife in an asylum can with difficulty be recognized as the legitimate outcome of the emancipation of women. It might indeed be thought that people who claim a right to have a voice in the making of laws should first set an example in the keeping of them. There is an amusing scone at the end of the book, in which the heroine insists on announcing at a public meeting the peculiar nature of her matrimonial affairs. The struggles of William Orr to prevent her speaking and the long-drawn-out periods of her father's oration are really extremely funny. The book is cleverly written, but we cannot admit that the characters are real flesh and blood.