Crockford's Clerical Directory, 1902. (Horace Cox. 20s.) — The new editor of
Crockford has succeeded to the laborious task and the aggravations with which his predecessor was familiar, and, we are glad to see, is also possessed of the same powers of self- defence. No little entertainment may be got from the prefaces of bygone years, and the first effort of the new chief is not un- worthy of its foregoers. The account of what the Directory aims at doing, and the suggestions to the clergy, upon whom the statistics depend in a large measure for their value, are all that could be desired. This done, the editor turns to some of his unreasonable correspondents,—fewer in number, we are glad to learn, than he had expected. The conditions of life for a great part of the clergy are not such as to favour a true sense of the proportion of things, and no one can be surprised at occasional inetances of folly. The old clergyman who, having ordered a copy of the book and forgotten the fact, told the editor that the appearance of the volume had nearly killed him, and that if it had "he would have been a murderer," is probably an extreme ease.
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