2 SEPTEMBER 1960, Page 23

p,. Di ary of a District Attorney. By Martin (Cassell. 16s.) Some

observations on what a he New York District Attorney does, and how does it, with some mildly melodramatised 'illustrative incidents, told in almost incoherently „urgid prose. (A paragraph on what a court- ;GM looks like begins: 'To fulfil the functional ,ecluirements of these rooms, seats are the main iPP'intments, all purposefully arranged.') Judge that maintains and seems, indeed, to believe Practice at the New York police have relegated the 'ractice wile of the third degree 'to the limbo of witchcraft and trial by ordeal,' which seems petty credulous of him. John Gosling and a larutglas Warner, the authors of The Shame of .(W. H. Allen, 16s.), express the belief (jseo-4'tleLdlliomosexuality is on the increase—as un- Y it is—the legality of acts between con- intll'ng Parties could, i our opinion, oly result of a further extension.'n This gives then measure qscholarship, statistical accuracy and serious °.tight in a book that purports to be 'An In- of triLinto the Vice of London,' a study chiefly tat."eterosexual prostitution, with no documett- hocti°.° whatsoever of sources, of figures or of sunkings, and a prose style that tends towards el Phrases as (of female prostitutes), 'They toow the symptoms of that disease, unknown en,,41„edical textbooks, cawllled degradation. The anraoi, casual contact th man at his most thenial • • • etches itself into their souls.' Hence Iv Phrase, no doubt, 'Come up and let me show auirrlY etchings.'