22 JANUARY 1927, Page 20

To America in Thirty-nine Days is an engaging trifle, consisting

of extracts from the diary of the late Joseph Biggs, of Leicester and London, telling of a voyage he undertook in 1887, before the days of steam. The author describes "a beautifully-planted promenade called the Battery," where the wit and fashion of New . York "walk ctp and down or sit smoking and drinking, or, if more refined, listening to music." For miles beyond New York, he says, the ground was laid out in building lots which were bought and sold for absurd sums." The population on Manhattan Island was then a quarter of a million, but the real estate men of those days had planned the Bronx to 366th Street I (Village Press, Idbury, Oxon.).