SWITCH* FAMILY ROBINSON Sut,—Many will surely share Strix's hootings at
the Central Electricity Board for the Switch Family Robinson. Moreover, at the risk of a charge of pedantry, may I say that the main characters in the book whose title is thus used were not named Robinson, that the "Robinson " of Der Schweitzerische Robinson is not a proper name, and that the " Family " of the English title is an adjective and not a noun ? Such was the fame of Robinson Crusoe that on the Continent a novel of adventure and "low life" became known generically as a "Robinson," and I suppose that the English translator who introduced the word " Family " into his version of the title used it in the sense in which we speak of a " family Bible " or a " family doctor." The name of the people who were cast away on the island and met their difficulties with so much enterprise, general knowledge and preternatural luck is stated in the pro- logue of the book: it was Starck. M. Starck, we are told in the English version before me, was a man " desirous that Practice should go hand in hand with Theory " ; and the prologue ends with an enunciation of ' the " important truth, that whatever the severity of the misfortunes with which it is the will of God at times to chasten us, Providence never abandons those who do not abandon themselves."—Yours faithfully,
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