Miscellany

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29058, 21 November 1959, Page 3

Miscellany

Ourselves Today. By Oliver Duff. Pegasus Press. 48 pp.

This booklet contains two lectures delivered by the author in the University of Otago in July, 1957. One discerns in them the sort of ruminative wisdom that characterises their author’s weekly contributions to the “New Zealand Listener," under the name of “Sundowner.” They were intended, he tells us, simply to provide talking points. And certainly, they give food for thought. One fact they fasten on to firmly is that a great many people in New Zealand (as many as two hundred thousand) are geared to a daily cow-milking routine. Such large-scale and permanent dependence on . the cow byre is not without its subtle influence upon those affected. This, at least, Mr Duff is convinced of. Indeed, he goes so far as to suggest that “cows are civilising agents" and almost conceded in the same breath that they are Christianising. It is in their reflective quality as much as in their breadth of understanding that lie the persuasiveness and charm of these lectures.

Advocates of the Golden Age. By Lewis Broad. John Long. 288 'pp.

Mr Broad believes that the first 20 years of this century were a golden age of advocacy in the English Courts of Justice. He also believes that four men were pre-eminent in gilding the age— Edward Marshall Hall, Edward Carson, Rufus Isaacs, and F. E. Smith. Accordingly, with the object of introducing readers of a new age to four great lawyers, Mr Broad has prepared in one volume four abbreviated .biographies. The result is excellent value. Not only does Mr Broad give a survey of the public life of each character, he captures and presents graphically the special attributes of each Many of the most notable cases in the English Courts appear, but just as interesting are details that fill out the lives of mgn who surely will impress readers new to them as firmly as they impressed their contemporaries. If Mr Broad’s book sends readers to the full-length biographies of the respective characters, readers will then appreciate how well Mr Broad has prepared his introduction.

Odd Man Out: Homosexuality in Men and Women. By Dr. Eustace Chesser. Gollancz. 192 pp.

There is much in our attitude to homosexuality that is wholly irrational. In the eyes of society and in law, homosexuality is considered to be much worse than adultery although homosexual acts performed by consenting adults cause far less misery. Also, for some mysterious reason, the repugnance felt fo: homosexuality is confined to men although the phenomenon is equally common amongst women. Although a more rational approach to this issue is gaining ground, much of what are conmonly considered to be the facts about homosexuality are quite erroneous. Reliable information and a balanced viewpoint'on this matter are greatly needed. While Dr. Chesser goes some way to provide this, considering the present state of ignorance, he has given far too much weight to psychoanalytic theory. Having disposed of some of the current fictions about homosexuality, he goes * some distance towards replacing them with fictions of his own. “Odd Man Out” suggests that Dr. Chesser would do more to further* the cause of enlighten ment if he thought more and wrote less

The Double Dealers. Adventures in Grand Deception. Collected and edited by Alexander Klein. Faber and Faber. 381 PP- ,

This is a collection of 60 short stories, all of them describing practical jokes, hoaxes and frauds. Though published in England, most of (he tales have their venue \,in the United States, and all have been culled from digests and other American periodicals. In his preface the editor freely admits that his main purpose, in compiling “this collection of true adventures in deception” is to provide entertainment, and in this he has succeeded.

Nearly everybody enjoys hearing about other people’s gullibility. and Mr Klein offers final proof that there is no limit to the ingenuity of crooks and no shortage of co-operative suckers, in the United States or anywhere else. The deceptions described in this anthology vary widely in motivation, sphere of action, locale and time. Twentieth century and Civil War espionage agents, male and female rub shoulders With a seventeenth century highwayman, a Renaissance lover and an atomic physics professor Others who share the pages of the book include master confidence men (and women) and equally skilled hoaxes in the arts, science, literature, journalism and medicine.

That these people ever lived to practice their manifold deceits is .of course deplorable—but the fact is that all these are true stories taken from real life. This symposium indeed proves that truth can be stranger than fiction One wonders whether its revelations will make gold bricks just a little harder to sell! The book includes too many tales of the same kind to be swallowed at one reading, but this is a diverting book to have by one’s bedside. Each story takes only about 10 minutes to read, and a succession of them is an excellent soporific.

When Cobb and Co. was King. B> Will Lawson. Angus and Robertson. 241 pp.

Now In its third edition, this story of the Australian 1860’s has as its central character a youth of 18 named Buster White, who dedicates himself to the coach driver’s life. He soon becomes an expert driver for Cobb and Company and a dash of excitement is added to the story when it tells of his coach being held up by armed bushrangers. He encounters not only adventure, but romance on the roads be travels along; and in the end he shoots a bushranger whose widow he then marries. This is a simpl" tale that catches something of the atmosphere of the old coaching days There is too little subtlety in its plot and characterisation to satisfy the sophisticated reader. None the less it should still continue to be widely popular.