BOOKS ON THE TABLE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22551, 5 November 1938, Page 20

BOOKS ON THE TABLE

Up through the hills of St. Charles County we rode through prosperous farms, nine-tenths of which were German, to visit Emil Finck, a big dairy man. He was outspoken, intelligent, candid concerning both the virtues and faults of the German farmer in rural America. He believes that they are the best farmers in the long run because they are slow, plodding, patient, respect the soil, take care of it, and conserve it. "The Yankees," he said, "would come out West, wear out the land, and move on. We work more solidly and more slowly. We put in more manure, more fertiliser, -wear old clothes, buy phosphate, and think of ten years, fifty, a hundred. See that slope over there?" He pointed to hills a mile away. They looked green and all right to me, "It has been pulled down for fifty years," he said, "it is skimmed milk. I sent a handful of it to Cornell to be analysed and it came back 'phosphate zero.' My Yankee friend and neighbour, a nice fellow, who wears better clothes and has a bigger car than mine, heard I needed more space for my cattle and tried to rent it to me. I told him I'd rent it for ten years but not for two. George, my hired man, and I were over there sitting and eating lunch the other day, among those poor hills and had them in our fingers. It would take ten years to make that land as good as mine." Finck now took another tack about his fellow-Germans. As farmers he was sure they were the best; as human beings he felt they were backward and bull-headed, made the mistake of hanging on too long to German customs, German language, German churches with sermons in German—too heavy and slow in becoming Americans. "When I go to St. Charles with a truck-load of eggs I always sell several crates to an old fossil friend of mine named Schultz. But he makes me speak German to him! He wouldn't buy from a man who tried to sell him anything in English! ... I laugh at him and like him, but how can he ever expect his children to become good Americans?" From "Americans All: A Human Study of America's Citizens from Europe," by William Seabrook. (George G. Harrap and Co. Ltd. 292 pp. 8/6 net.) This very interesting study of the German. Scandinavian, Russian, Italian, Polish, and Dutch elements in the American populationmass brings out many large and important facts, such as the extent of the foreign-born ' population (15,000,000), the persistence, among a still larger population, of alien customs and tradition, the patching of the American map with distinctly foreign settlements, the industrial distribution of the immigrant races, and so on. (Three miners out of five in a coalmining area are Poles. In Philadelphia the garment-makers are 95 per cent. Italian. Most window-cleaners are Russians.) Mr Seabrook is an excellent reporter; and his conclusion is that the "foreign menace" is nothing to worry about, and that the "American Melting Pot," in spite of bubbles, steam, and scum, "is producing a good, sound, healthy, conglomerate." * * We of the twentieth century are hardly one small step ahead of the ancients. . . . The oldest bathtub, so old that Helen of Troy may have bathed in it, is a photographic reproduction of one of our own. The first "modern" swimming pool, apparently for public use, has been found in the ruins of the city of Kish, in Sumeria, too old to date. This pool was equipped with an entirely up-to-date circulating system. The toilets of King Minos, in his palace on the Island of Crete, were flushed with water. Connected with such toilets, on the Island of Thera, nearby, • half a thousand years before ; Christ, are marble basins for washing the hands, supplied with running water. And in Egyptian Abusir, which flourished 4500 years ago, limestone kitchen sinks are found, built into the walls and finished with metal trim. To make the .picture entirely familiar, the taps of these sinks turned off and on like our own, and plugs about an inch in diameter, with a ring in the top, were connected to a bronze chain and fastened to each sink.. From "So You Think It's New," by Wilfred J. Funk. (Angus and Robertson. 193 pp. 5/-.) This diverting little orchestration of the theme, "There's nothing new under the sun," will surprise any reader and make him sigh and smile over a world which changes so fast . . . and stays the same. Mr Semple, fiercely attacking the modern social danger of the drunken motorist, is only Pittacus all over again. Who was Pittacus? Pittacus flourished 2600 years ago, in Greece, and enacted a -law doubling the penalty on any offender found to have been drunk! * That the African lion has taken a big toll of sportsmen ..,. is evinced by the sad eulogies seen in the different African churchyards—- " Died from Lion Wounds." These words convey a great deal, and yet even to-day, with man armed with the most modern rifle, the chances with a really charging lion are pretty well even. You shoot at him

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I —he will ever be prized as a trophy—and he goes into bush to I await you. I have never seen a lion attempt to charge over sixty yards distance. He is cunning and brave, and waits until he is certain of getting his charge home. He or she stands —one or two lashes with that jerking, twisting, upturned tail, and he comes. His feet do not appear to be touching the ground. He is bunched up and momentarily halts ac he attempts to pull you with his o-.itstretched claws to his open mouth. It is a terrifying experience, and the man who can stop one of these beasts coming as described can be relied upon taking the rough with the smooth —it is a good fifty-fifty chance. This is the respect I hold for the charging king of beasts when he does make that determined onslaught. The danger is in'shooting too quickly, and it certainly takes a cool nerve to wait until he reaches a certain spot your brain~and eye in conjunction have already selected. This, is where the short arm would still give you a .sporting chance, should you fail to stop him with your rifle. Usually the parts he tries for are the thighs and arms. From "White Hunter: The Adventures and Experiences of a Professional Big Game Hunter in Africa," by J. A. Hunter. (Seeley, Service and Co. Ltd. 282 pp. 15/- net.) Lion, elephant, buffalo, leopard, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, crocodile—all have been literally in the day's work for Mr Hunter. He records experiences which are thrilling enough to make any reader catch his breath, and sometimes enough to make him giggle. Perhaps thrill and giggle come together, rather. awkwardly, when a rhino charges a car, shoves her horn under and through the running board, tilts the car over, breaks off the board, and goes careering away, with the board impaled, the mudguard banging behind, and her monster infant -following in, her wake, squeaking as it ran"! The photographs that illustrate this book, which has the touch of truth on every page, are as impressive as the text. » * * It would seem from his [Charcot's] accounts that he did not feel the same excitement on this second expedition as he had on the first. Perhaps one can never undertake the same enterprise a second time with the same enthusiasm; perhaps there was no longer the same close link of friendship between him and his companions; and then, he had not left under the same conditions: this time he had had to tear himself away reluctantly from a home he had no desire to leave. The childlike enthusiasm which reigned - on the "Francais," where life was rough and ready, was not as remarkable in the "Pourquois Pas?" where, by comparison, there was every comfort: the men tended to be the more exacting if the slightest detail was amiss. "We need the occupation of our work; and a strong determination not to let ourselves be beaten," wrote Charcot, "if we are to be saved from being completely demoralised by the horrors of this climate." He was no exception to the rule that every sailor, during the

worst weather, swears never to set foot on' a ship again. ... On board the "Pourquois Pas?" Le must have read with a smile a passage in his diary of the previous expedition, in which he declared that if he ever got back to France, he would never seek adventure again. But throughout his life he was never to turn his back on adventure. From "Charcot of the Antarctic," by Martho Oulie. (John Murray. 235 pp. 12/6 net.) Jean Charcot was one of the astounding creatures who spring up to make the astounding history of navigation and exploration. In two Antarctic expeditions he brought France within the renown of modern polar discovery. The Great War drew him into the anti-submarine campaign; later, he was foremost in such rescue enterprises as were called for by the exploits and misadventures of Petersen and Amundsen. - Charcot perished, at last, in the wreck of his grand "Pourquois Pas?" on the coast of Iceland, two years ago. Marthe Oulie, acknowledged as "my godchild" by Charcot himself, has written a biography which sketches the man's achievement and more distinctly and fully portrays the man himself.