FASHION ARTIST IN NIGERIA

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23379, 12 July 1941, Page 5

FASHION ARTIST IN NIGERIA

CURRENT BOOKS

Mad Dogs and Englishmen. ..-Bj Erick Berry. Michael Joseph .Ltd. 287 pp. (11/-.) Through Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd.

This is an excellent book—the record of an American fashion artist’s experience when, having married a British colonial administrator, -she joined him In his Nigerian district. To call her a clever woman and this a clever book would be to malign both. There is none of the shallowness or cocksureness Of the clever person about either. In one of her best (and most amusing) passages she characterises with damning accuracy a clever person, a bookfed, confident intellectual who, knew all about Nigeria before he came there, about the conditions, of official life, about its material problems, and about its subtler ones of race, right, and rule. Erick Berry had no such false confidence, nor the hideous faculty for making merry over the startling contrasts between the tribal laws and ways of (say) New York or Upper Sandusky and those of the Hausas. She had the mind to look for the sources and significance of what was strange, and a very apt mind. Also, it is clear, she had a husband who had grown wise in this search; and she was his fortunate pupil. This is why the most diverting and the most startling of the stories she tells take shape against a background which makes them intelligible: for example, that of the lamentable social consequences of innocently putting a slight upon a servant, or that of the chief who, believing that the victims of relapsing fever (previously unknown among his people) were really the victims, of malignant spells, caused three men arid one woman to die under the poison-test for witchcraft. This is part of H. B.’s judgment on the “murderer”: The accused did not wish to cause [their] death ... but gave them as fair a trial, according to his lights, as, I hope, the Court is giving him. He believed that he was performing a public duty, and was aware that in so doing he was sure to be punished by the Government, probably with death. This Court is compelled by the section of the Code to pass sentence of death, but strongly recommends that the sentence be reduced to three months’ imprisonment. In sum, the motive of the accused in causing these deaths was no worse and no better than that of this Court in passing sentence upon him. This Cpurt would add that few Courts would perform what they held to be their duty, if they felt, as this primitive native did, that it would draw, down upon the Court the death penalty. In this his public spirit exceeds that of most.

This enlightening background stretches behind Erick Berry’s comments on such topics as the education of the Hausa child or the courtesy of the negro, behind her account of the potency of rhythm in African life or of the death rites of a king; who could not be officially dead or mounted on his funeral charger until the rains came.

SIEGE OF WARSAW I Saw the Siege of Warsaw. By Alex- . ander Folonius. William Hodge and Co. Ltd. 364 pp. (12/6 net.) Mr Polonius reached Warsaw, on his return from a holiday, as. the first German air attacks began. Within a few days the evacuation of civilians took him to a nearby village. Here he worked with the Civic Guard, attempting to maintain order amid the disorganisation of a population in flight. He saw the German bombers hunting in an empty sky,, after the success of their early raids on the Polish aerodromes. He heard the rumours of hope—the French and the British aeroplanes were certainly comihg—and of disaster, as the war front rolled back. He saw a spy unmasked, one of, the many who helped to confuse and break the Poles. Then he returned to Warsaw to serve as a volunteer; and his day-to-day narrative runs the course of the siege, as the city was savaly bombarded from the air and by artillery, fires spread, hunger aided terror in demoralising ;the civilians, and the surrender, when at last it had to be ipade, was that of a city which no; longer even knew whether the Polish armies Were still fighting elsewhere or not. But Mr Polonius determined not to remain in Warsaw under German occupation. He and a Russian-speaking companion dodged through the German ring; and the last third of the book records their hazardous Journey north-east through Lithuania and so to Riga and to safety in Norway. This book is remarkable for the fullness of its detail, set down with sober clarity even under the shock of dreadful events and amid heavy personal risks. Mr Polonius is a first-class witness.

NEW NOVELS MAN-OF-NO-TVORK Thomasheen James. By Maurice Walsh. • W. and R. Chambers Ltd. asl pp. (8/- net.) Through Whltcombe -• and Tombs Ltd. ■Mr Walsh adds his sketches of Thomasheen James to the portrait gallery—lrish section—of shiftless but resourceful rascals who are forever cheating and disappointing their would-be steady employers and reformers and forever consoling and compensating (and sometimes confounding) them with their gifts of wit (not to say gab) and of heart. Only hear a taste of Thomasheen James's quality—

Civil such a dog you never saw! A bad cross betune a Irish water-spaniel an’ a half-bred pug-dog—as sure as I’m tellin’ you—the colour of a warty spud an’ fed like a Christian. She goes waddlin’ up and down the garden path, her paunch to the ground, her tongue at the side of her mouth, an’ a harmless look in her eye; and the first you know, she'll have her teeth in your calf an’ a screech out o’ her an’ you. Many’s the time I’m inclined to acquaint her with the toe o’ me boot, only 1 know better with the ould lady lookin’ on, breakin’ her heart laughin’, an’ a shillin’ in the heel of her fist to restore the pain. Wait till I tell .you!—

and, unless such blandishing music is wasted on you, it is hanging on his words that you are.

SUSAN OF HAUITI Sackcloth for Susan. By Rosemary Rees. Chapman and Hall Ltd. 286 pp, (7/6 net.) Miss Rees follows the fortunes of a cheerful and courageous Susan, equally attractive as a schoolgirl in hot water, as a rebel against her stepmother’s regime at Hauiti, the sheep-station home she loved, as an innocent abroad, taking the buffets of life in a touring revue company, and as Bob Meredith’s partner in the unconventional bargain which made her his wife and established him bn his farm. Romance, of course, broke in disturbingly upon this business-like arrangement; and Miss Rees has never managed better a disturbance of that sort.

MURDER ON HOLIDAY

The Crouching Hill. By Winifred Blazey. Michael Joseph. 319 pp. (8/9.) Through Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd.

The young woman who was found dead at the Rose and Thorn Inn was one of a group of teachers and assistants escorting a school excursion to Wales. Inspector Jervis’s suspicions were naturally roused against the redheaded Miss French, who occupied the same room—or said she had—in undisturbed slumbers. He even contrived to unearth a plausible motive. • But he was dogged and honest; and, by inquiries which entertain the reader with contrasts between masterful, malicious, mean, or maddish characters (mostly feminine) and others more likeable, Jervis was carried to a conclusion which upset his prejudices, confirmed his psychology, and broke a very fine alibi. Miss Blazey deserves the' Book Society’s recommendation.