12 JULY 1957, Page 32

The Law of the Streets. By Auguste le Breton. (Collins,

10s. 6d.) Paris underworld at some un- specified time in past when couple could have blow-out on twenty francs. Episode saga of couple of sewer-rat waifs who cadge and cringe, filch and fornicate, and are loyal to each other, told in all the faded cliches of the tough-but-sentimental school of silent films. Flickers appealingly along to final fade-out, but shows, all too clearly, that not every translation from the French is a new Simenon.