5 JUNE 1897, Page 26

Royal Blue - Book, 1897. (Belly and Co.)—This volume is now in

its seventy-fifth year, and continues to fulfil as well as possible its special function of a "fashionable directory." There is an official list, a Parliamentary guide, and other useful matters. The Royal Courts of Justice guide is susceptible of improvement. It has, in fact, been very carelessly drawn up. The title of " Chief Clerk " ought to have disappeared. The Chancery officials hitherto known by that name are now designated "Masters," and have been so for some months. And why in the enumeration of numbers (pp. 264-295) is one of the three "Chief Clerks" dis- tinguished by that name, and the other two, working under the same Judge, not so distinguished ? Sir Alfred Milner's name no longer appears in the Inland Revenue Office, but he is described as belonging to it in the " Alphabetical Directory."