15 OCTOBER 1927, Page 19

Irish lawyers have a traditional gift of humour, and Sir

John Ross, the last Lord Chancellor of Ireland, well maintains the credit of his profession in his new volume of reminiscences called Pilgrim Scrip (Herbert Jenkins. 18s.). He is an Ulster Presbyterian but he writes sympathetically about the Roman Catholics of the South, and in his anecdotes makes fun of both parties. He devotes a chapter to the late Mr. W. P. French, who was the author of the once popular comic song, " Abdullah Bulbul Arneer." He quotes incidentally some of Father Healy's sayings. Calling an English visitor's attention to a man in very ragged trousers, he remarked that the man must be an Irish landlord " because his rent's in arrear."