Shorter Notice
The Sahibs. By Hilton Brown. (Hodge. 15s.)
DEI.mtIs KINCAID'S British Social Life in India was a just and urbane study of a subject which, in its raw state, is capable of producing tears as well as laughter but is far more likely to produce yawns than either. Kincaid refined this raw material into a work of art ; the anthologist who compiled The Sahibs has merely chopped it up into small pieces. The result is inevitably disappointing. Not even those who have resided for half their lives in Meerut (and such persons form a comparatively small section of the reading public) will be deeply interested to learn that Miss Eden described it in 1838 as "a large European station—a quantity of barracks and white bungalows spread over four miles of plain. There is nothing to see or draw" ; and, although most of the extracts from. letters, diaries, newspapers and so on are less tersely jejune than this, the anthology does not come off. It contains, indeed, many curious faits divers and several lively descriptions ; but these are interspersed among much ordinary and rather repetitious stuff and the total effect is similar to that of a family album in the early days of photography.
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