SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
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[Notice in this column does not necessarily preclude subupsent reciuo.]
Women in War. By Francis Gribble. (Sampson Low, Marston, and Co. 7s. 6d. net.)—This book, so eminently topical, was yet written, Mr. Gribble tells us, before the world-war was talked of. It is an interesting account of individual women or groups of women noted for deeds of bravery, adventurous exploits, or for some special association with war from the time of Boadicea to that of Florence Nightingale. In an epilogue, in which Mr. Gribble endeavours to bring the record somewhat up to date, he tells us that he was interned in Germany, and has something to say of German women in war time :— " The Germans, no leas than ourselves, have, as they would say, ' mobilised ' their women, whether they belonged to the idle or to the industrial classes, though they have made rather less use than we have of their intelligence, and rather more use of their muscles. The writer has not only Been crowds of German nurses in neat uniforms awaiting the arrival of the wounded at the railway stations ; he has also seen women working as platelayers on the railway at Spandau, and cleaning the streets and driving the tramcars in Berlin."
The epilogue also records the experiences of some of the women who have served in the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Armies—"no fewer than twenty of them in the Voluntary Ukraine Legion alone "—and of the women doctors and nurses who went through the Sorbian campaign.
The Victorious Attitude. By Orison Swett Harden. (G. Bell and Sons. 3s. 6d. net.)—" It is a great thing so to carry yourself wherever you go that when people see you coming they will say to themselves Here comes a winner ! ' " "Radiate a hopeful, expectant, cheerful atmosphere." "Our personal appearance is our show window where we insert what we have for sale, and we are judged by what we put there." These sentences taken almost at random from Mr. Marden's book give in a few words his argument for the cultivation of self-belief and will-power. There is certainly a good deal that is inspiring about this gospel of practical optimism, but after a perusal of Mr. Marden's sixteen vigorous chapters we are inclined to feel that there is not so much in it as he supposes. There is much to be said for methods less obviously strenuous. After all, many people "get there" who could never conjugate the verb "to boost."
London Shown by Shakespeare. By Hubert Ord. (George Routlodge and Sons. ls. not.)—Mr. Ord's painstaking study only reveals the fact that Shakespeare after all said very little about London. The most illuminating passage is that in Henry VII/. where the habits of the London apprentices are described with much vigour. Among the other papers in this little book is one on "A Source of Shakespeare's Sonnets,' in which Mr. Ord claims that the poet here derived his inspiration from The Roman de la Rose. He argues his point very earnestly and carefully, but we must confess that he does not convince us that he has any case.
The Hope of the Future. By Dr. Mary Scharlieb. (Chapman and Hall. 6s. net.)—Mothers and nurses will find this little book on the management of children in health and disease very helpful. It is not a mere manual of treatmont,but contains also much sensible advice in homely language on the upbringing of children, from a moral as well as a medical standpoint. Infantile mortality is still so terribly large In England that books of this kind deserve the heartiest encouragement.. The Wyse-Sayin'e o' Solomon : the Proverbs Rendered in Scots. By the Rev. T. Whyte Patterson. (Paisley : A. Gardner. 3s. 6d. net.)— As a literary curiosity, this version of the Proverbs in broad Scots, with many archaisms from Jameson's Dictionary, deserves mention. Proverbs xviii. 8 is rendered : "The clitter-clatters o' a clishmaclaiver are unco gustie till him, An' he guzzles ower them himsel as gin they were a haggis." Of course the ordinary Scotsman would understand the Revised Version much more readily than this.
Zoe Thomson of Bishopthorpe and her Friends. By E. C. Rickards. (J.Murray. 10s. 6d. net.)—The late Mrs. Thomson, widow of the former Archbishop of York, was a remarkable woman, and this sympathetio memoir of her—by the lady who performed a similar service for Mrs. Thomson's aunt, Miss Felicia Skone, of Oxford—will be read with pleasure. Mrs. Thomson's father, James Skene, was a Scotsman, and her mother a Greek lady of the Rizo-Rangabe family, whose beauty she inherited. From 1863 to 1890, when her husband was Archbishop, she made Bishopthorpe a centre of hospitality and good works. The late Lord Grimthorpe said that "she was the only logical woman he had met." It was a poor compliment, but it showed that she had captivated even that quarrelsome lawyer. Of her portrait by G. F. Watts, it is said that, after the painter had had sixteen long sittings, the Archbishop only recognized the portrait as that of his wife by the necklace which she was wearing!
Reclaiming the Waste. By P. Anderson Graham. (G. Nevrnes. 3s. 6d. net.)—This is a series of papers reprinted from Country Life on the vexed problem of waste land here and in other old countries. The accounts of what has been done in the last few years in Norfolk and in Sussex are most encouraging. A Norfolk health, reclaimed since 1913 with the help of the Development Commission, yielded in 1915 on one hundred and thirty-six acres crops to the value of £1,730, with a profit of £3 an acre. Professor Somerville, on a strip of down. landnear Newhaven, has in five years created a prosperous farm with plantations, which yields four times as much food as it did before. The astonishing results of reclamation work in Holland and Belgium are briefly summarized, and there are papers on the planting of the shale and slag heaps of the industrial North—an excellent movement which has had great success. The author goes too far in suggesting that the sixteen million acres waste in this country could almost all be made profitably to grow crops or trees, even though agricultural chemistry and modern machinery have worked miracles.
Society and Prisons. By T. M. Osborne. (Oxford University Press. 6s. net.)—The author of this instructive book—written as a course of lectures at Yale—is an enthusiast for the new American plan of reforming prisoners by trusting them. He speaks with authority. He has acted as Warden of Sing Sing Prison in New York State, and, as Chairman of a State Commission, he voluntarily served a short term in Auburn Prison so that he could understand the prisoner's point of view. Mr. Osborne declares that the Mutual Welfare Leagues in these prisons have not only improved the health and morals of the inmates, but have also inspired many of them with a determination to go straight when they are released. It is, as he says, to the discredit of the old prison system that so many of the convicts arc old offenders, and any scheme which promises to make better men of them while they are under lock and key deserves the most serious consideration. "The whole question has shifted from how to keep men in prison to the question of how to send them out."
War Plays. By Allan Monkhouse. (Constable and Co. 2s. net.)— Mr. Monkhouse is well known as one of the most promising of the group of playwrights to whom Miss Homiman's enterprise has introduced us, and these three short plays are good specimens of his work. The comedy Night Watches is perhaps the most attractive, and, as we all like to see ourselves as others see us, it would no doubt be much enjoyed by audiences of the staff and convalescents of Red Cross hospitals.
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