In Chinese Stories, by Norman Hindsdale Pitman (George G. Harrap,
5s. net), we get back to antiquity, but Chinese antiquity, which has a character of its own. What could be more Chinese than " Sing Li's Fortune " ? Doomed to die at nineteen, actually on his birthday, he climbs, by an astrologer's advice, to the top of a mountain and finds South Measure and North Measure, gods of Life and Death, playing at chess, suggests a move to one of them, and contents the other with the provision which he has brought with him. So they alter on the scroll of Fate XIX to XCIX—is this good in Chinese numbers ?—and he is saved. There is not much of a moral here. But " Yow To's First Lessons" and "Fairy Old Boy," who reforms a murderous tiger,
and the stories in general make up for the want. There are eleven tales and eight characteristic coloured pictures.- —Ameba and Crispin : a Fairy Tale, by Margaret Clayton (Chatto and Windus, 3s. 6d. net), does not altogether please. It is of the "Alice in Wonderland" class; but the adventure with the giant scarcely fits in.
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