Boons or REFERENCE.—Keily's Handbook to the Titled, Landed, and Official
Classes (Kelly's Directories) appears for the twenty-sixth time. It is a very comprehensive and, con- sequently, very useful volume, a directory to the "Upper Ten," or, it would be more correct to say, the "Upper Fifteen," or even "Upper Twenty Thousand."—The Clergy List (same publishers, 12s. 6d.) is so well known as to need little notice. The information it gives is as complete and as accurate as can possibly be expected in a record so very difficult to compile. The " values " are, as always, the most questionable part ; this year the benefices have gross and net incomes stated. By " gross " must surely be meant the nominal value,—the tithe, for instance, as commuted, not as reduced or increased by the corn averages. Here are two instances. The gross value of A is given at £150; it really is £210 plus the rent of twenty-seven acres of glebe; that of B at £320, whereas it is 8600 plus rent of nine acres. The net is really an unattainable figure. It would be better to give the nominal value, and state in an introduction the nature and average relative amount of the outgoings.—We may mention also the "tenth thousand" of Who's Who at the War (A. and C. Black, 6d. net), containing lists of officers serving, with their records, the wounded, and the killed.
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