23 APRIL 1942, Page 18

The Sporting Queensberrys. By the tenth Marquess of Queens- berry.

'Hutchinson. 158.) As a book this story of the. Queensberry family from old Q. to the present Marquess, or, alternately, from the pug. Broughton to the National Sporting Club, suffers from a literary schizophrenia, for the chapters (called Rounds) are divided between biography of the family and accounts of prize-fighting with no chronological link. For instance, the final paragraphs describing the intransigent hatred of the writer's grandfather for his father '(less because he went bail for Oscar Wilde than because he was guilty of a mesalliance, entirely satisfactory, with a vicar's daughter) is immediately followed, six dots between, by a disquisition on the legal position of prize-fighting in the time of Gully. Some readers may be able to make the best of both worlds and not need to " cut the cackle to get to the 'osses," whether history or pugilism ; as a matter of fact, the fans of e side would do quite well to read about the other for, with the etc tion of some lapses due to over-confidence, the stories are told w a distinct gift for narrative.