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Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21802, 6 June 1936, Page 19

fOOR IRISH Nana, A Memory of an Old Nurse. By Harriet Ide Keen Roberts. Macmillan. 89 pp. (4/6 net.) “Nana” is the story of an old Irishwoman told by one whom she lovingly served. Nana was born in Ireland in the ’forties, lost her parents in the potato famine, emigrated at the age of 15 to America, whore she lived in service for the rest of her long life, except for a short visit to England. Her simple goodness, devotion, and hard work were appreciated by the family whom she served for two generations, and this kindness was some recompense for the misery and want of her early years. The story of this character i which remained sweet and true in I adversity is built up from the memories of the little girl who, now, j after Nana’s death, is the woman who writes about her. Nana was delighted when the little girl offered to write down her experiences, and the sheets of paper bearing the hasty child|sh scrawls preserve many of Nana’s actual words. The two most considerable parts of her memories describe the horrors of the potato famine in Ireland, and the squalid terrors of a passage across the Atlantic in a sailing ship as a thirdclass steerage passenger Seven weeks and three days of wretchedness ended the period of greatest distress, though hard work and thrift were always to be Nana’s portion, first to pay the passages of her brothers and sisters. “They knew we didn’t know anything but hardship.” These youthful hardships were never forgotten, and it was “a deep delight to her to feed people, to go on feeding people, to defeat that demon of hunger which had been the terror of her childhood.” Nana never lost her hatred of England, although Queen Victoria was always a legendary figure of goodness. “That hatred lasted to the end of Nana’s life, a part of the spirit which brought in coroner’s verdict after coroner’s verdict on famine victims in Ireland. ‘Murdered by order of Lord John Russell.’”

A LIFE OF CRIME Limey Breaks In. By James Snenser. Longmans, Green and Co. 305 pp. This reissue in a cheaper edition of a former criminal’s autobiography can be read with interest by those who are not attracted by crime as such. As a psychological study the book has definite points and as a piece of clear, concise, and graphic writing it is to be commended. The author describes his life of crime from the time he stole a purse at the age of eight till he graduated as a * burglar, safe-breaker, confidence trickster, and passer of false coin. His-experiences in industrial

schools, Borstals, and prisons are not the least interesting of his reprehensible adventures, and offer some illuminating notions about the mind of the criminal, and his attitude to society and reformative institutions, ,