Shorter Notices
Tim story of Caddie shows once more that there is one kind of truth for fiction and another for-real life. If her autobiography had been turned into a novel everyone would have said that it could never have happened. She was born in a little town near Sydney. Her parents died. Her husband deserted her. She had to accept work she hated in order to keep her children. The depression came. Her second husband-to-be was killed in an accident just before they were due to be married. Caddie might have seemed a saint, except for the fact that she had to practise as an illegal bookmaker— an "S.P. bookie"—in order to save a little money and escape from serving behind the bar. Miss Dymphna Cusack's introduction leads one to expect a richer, racier style of writing; the general tone is a little ladylike, but admittedly so many of the incidents are so melodramatic in themselves that this may have been the only way to treat them. It is a pity, too, that the dust-jacket presents the book as though it were a cheap novel. Everyone interested in licensing law will find this story important evidence against restriction and prohibition. It has also great value as a "human document," and makes this clichd have some meaning, The indomitable Caddie shows that it is possible to live surrounded by vice and degradation and conquer every obstacle to happiness without turning into a prig, a grumbler or
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