MARRIAGE ON SMALL MEANS.
Marriage on Small Means. By Mrs. C. S. Peel. (Constable and Co. 30. 6d.)—The young man wno is meditating matri- mony on an exiguous income will be well advised to present a copy of this sensible little book to his future bride, and not ill advised, perhaps, to discuss its teaching with her. Mrs. Peel is extremely practical, and sets forth the various pro- blems that will have to be solved by such a couple in a very useful fashion. She deals specially with two classes of home- seekers—the lower middle class, who can marry safely on f300 a year, with some prospects of an additional hundred in the near future, and the upper middle class, for whom £700, increasing to about £1,000, will suffice. For both classes she explains the burdens that will have to be borne and the trials that will have to be faced, with illustrative budgets taken from actual experience. In both cases the essence of her advice is, not to lose the substance through snatching at the shadow—not to waste in pretension the money that would otherwise suffice for comfort. The curse of most middle-class life is the imaginary need to do what others do—even Mrs. Peel is weak enough to admit that you must give champagne to mere acquaintances, though "an inexpensive white wine"
will do for intimate friends 1 . . •• . .
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