Scilly and the Scillonians. By J. G. Wren. (Western Morning
News Company, Plymouth. 6s. net.)—Mr. Wren tells us that he was postmaster of Plymouth for thirty years, and that lie knows Scilly, which is within the Plymouth postal district, thoroughly well. He writes, indeed, as one who is quite master of his subject. Ho saw the islands first in the "sixties," some years, that is, before the death of Mr. Augustus Smith,—the coming of this gentleman in 1834 is as the Hegira in Scilly history. The natural history of the islands, the employment of the people, the pros- pects of the fishing industry, and other local matters are familiar to him. Things have in some respects gone hardly with the islanders, though in other matters their lot has been bettered. Pilotage, especially, is now an expiring industry. Mr. Wren is, perhaps, a little too confident in his judgments on points on which he has no special qualifications. It does not follow that because there are crowded regions in cities where "plague spots wallow in moral and physical destitution" (to use Mr. Wren's remarkable imagery), it is therefore wrong to put clergymen in such parishes as the Scilly Islands. The talk, again, about the priest always being a good trencherman is nothing less than foolish. Elsewhere we find instances of bad taste, as where Mr. Wren discourses about the Scillonian love of gossip. He is quite right, however, in regretting the gross waste of money which took place when railways were made, and not less so when he thinks that the nationalisation of them would not be a change for the better.
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