A Country-side Chronicle. By S. L. Bensusan. (W. Heine- mann.
'Ts. 6d. net.)—Mr. Bensusan writes as one who for a year or so took his "week-ends" at the same country retreat. It does not much matter whether this is a literary artifice or not. Any- how, he writes from a knowledge of the country which is not limited to the time when it commonly appeals to the tastes and feelings of the dwellers in cities. He divides his book by the four seasons, and is not less familiar with spring (generally the least-known period) than with summer. One of his descriptive touches is worth quoting as likely to be recognised by country dwellers as true; that wild creatures move more at the full moon than at any other thus. The writer of this notice remem- bers well the multitude of rabbits that be saw in a walk by moon- light on the eve of a long frost in 1891-92. The season brought them out, aided quite possibly by prescience of the coming weather and its accompanying shortness of food. The book is one that can be thoroughly enjoyed from cover to cover. The last chapter on "Protection" we would specially commend to our readers. 'The agricultural labourer was far worse off when wheat was from sixty to ninety shillings a quarter than he is now; the idea of helping him by putting a tax on food is, indeed, strange to any one who has known the labourer's side of country life. A nonagenarian neighbour, William by name, represents the genuine country spirit untouched by town influence. He is, in his way, a genuine paganue, and helps us to see how the word comes to bear its present meaning.
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