OUT OF DANGER INTO DANGER

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21992, 16 January 1937, Page 15

OUT OF DANGER INTO DANGER

A RUSSIAN ADVENTURER

Sentenced to Adventure. By Serge Zolo. George G. Harrap and Co. Ltd. 284 pp. (8s 6d net.)

Some time near the beginning of this century there was born in a Eussian prpvince Serge Zolotoohin. At the time his father, an army general, was hanging mutineers, and the following day the regimental doctor who attended his mother was shot by Nihilists. His life up to and through the revolution, though harsh enough, was probably not as bad as that of some of the refugees, but from the time he left the cadet college in St. Petersburg, he was, as he says, "sentenced' to adventure." There are few parts of the world in which Zolotoohin has not been, and mostly he has penetrated them by the shadier and less attractive routes and in some way or other he has had to win from them at least money and food. After escaping from Russia to* Sweden he reached Scotland by a tramp steamer which was torpedoed in the North Sea. England did not please him; nor did clerical work in Canada. Three years on the verge of the Arctic Circle followed, with many' escapes from death; and when he returned to the cities," he encountered strikes, riots, and gun fights as a policeman. He deserted,,and smuggled Chinese from Canada to the United States, and when the game grew too hot he smuggled rum. The crew mutinied and the ship was captured by a coast guard cutter. A hurricane in the South Seas left him penniless after his release, and he visited New Zealand for a very short time. He roamed the Chinese lines during the Japanese attack on Shanghai and eventually joined the staff of a Montreal newspaper. After many sensational scoops he was forced to resign, especially after" a ridiculous misunderstanding involving Amy Mollison.

M. Zolo, which is the name he used after leaving Russia, has the gift of conveying scenes and impressions very vividly in a very few words. His style, especially in the earlier pages, is reminiscent of another Continental writer who has found a home in America —Konrad Bercovici. Later, when describing some of his experience as a journalist, he writes less brokenly but always sharply and often harshly. He spares nobody in the book, and an extract is worth quoting:

Politicians were most objectionable people to interview when they were sitting on the top of the world. But when they were down or seeking reelection there was nothing too good for a newspaperman. Richard B. Bennett, for instance, never failed to be rude and boorish to me when he was Prime Minister. He runs true to the type of Canadian public man. In his own eyes he/s a small edition of a dictator. Speaking to him I always had the impression that he was haunted by fear of Moscow, and the conviction that Moscow, if it knew of Mr Bennett's was not greatly troubled. Under Bennett's regime it meant a term in the penitentiary to be a Communist. Communism, he says, is anti-Christian. It is also opposed to the acquisition of colossal private fortunes. After interviewing Bennett I was always raging. But I had always a news story as he lost his temper and said things he never meant to say.

M. Zolo, however, was fated to get into trouble with the Government. He.uncovered frauds and official embezzlements and reached almost the height of his unpopularity in two serious breaks with the police. With his forced retirement from journalism M. Zolo finishes his book; but the wanderlust is in his blood and he says that he is planning to cruise the world in a 60-foot schooner because "I want 'to write about strange people and photograph strange places." If the result is to be another book as entertaining as the present, one may wish him all.speed on his way.