BOOK NOTES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 52, 28 January 1933, Page 9

BOOK NOTES

“THE BORGIAS.” Mr L. Collison-Morley, in the lives of the Borgias, has a subject of unfailing interest. The problem they impose is unique. For their eminence as statesmen who achieved the good government of a province, and whose policy pointed to the unification of Italy, is combined with a reputation for ruthless crime. Let of all the crimes which have been laid to their charge there is scarcely one of which it can be said that the evidence is conclusive. It is at best cumulative. For the indictment must be based on contemporary rumours and reports; upon hints and statements by foreign Ambassadors; upon letters and diaries which keep coming to light, and upon universal suspicion. The effect of such cumulative evidence is enough to justify conviction amounting to certainty. But if, in the nature of things, guilt can hardly be definitely proved, the process of arriving at a conclusion with regard to it has something oi the fascination of a detective story. Each reader is a juror, and the verdict passed must be according to his judgment. Did Prince Djem die a natural death ? Who was responsible for the murder of the Duke of Gandia P Was the famous “white powder” of the Borgias a myth, or were they adepts in the use of slow poisons as well as ruthless wielder of the poignard, as Victor Hugo and Donizetti depicted them ? If poison was used, was it arsenic or antimony, or a subtle compound of these and other drugs? These and similar questions have to be answered by the jury which enters upon tire trial of the Borgias. But wliatey.gr answers may be given it is necessary, in order to form a fair judgment, to keep in mind the moral atmosphere of the time. It is the merit of Mr Collison-Morley’s study of the Borgias that he keeps steadily before the reader the background of the Renaissance period m which they lived. Judged by the standard of the times, indeed, he regards them as in no way abnormal.

WINDWARD HO. Before Captain A. W. Pearse “swallowed the anchor” to become a leading authority on the pastoral industry he had long and diversified experiences afloat. Some of these are recorded in “Windward Ho.” Captain Pe arse’s attachment to the sea belongs to his boyhood. In the sixties of last century he was at- school in Deal, Kent. He seized every possible opportunity to go out with Deal boatmen, “hovellers,” as they were called, who plied to and from the Downs, where a fleet of sailing vessels of all sorts were anchored, awaiting a favourable wind. Captain Pearse mentions that sometimes as many as 1200 were there. He saw the finish of the famous race, in 1866, between five tea clippers from China, and the spectacle of the Anal and the Taeping tearing past Deal, neck and neck, under a cloud of canvas, determined him to be a sailor. The ariel arrived at the East India. Docks an hour before the Taeping arrived at the London Docks, but the Taeping, getting through more quickly than the other, docked 20 minutes sooner, and so was declared the "'inner. However, it was really a deadheat, and the victor halved the prizes and bounties with her rival. After leaving school in 1869, Captain Pearse spent 18 months in an accountant’s office, and then fulfilled his ambition of going to sea, shipping as a.n apprentice on the Cardigan Castle, bound for Melbourne In agreeing to take him, Captain Davis, the skipper, advised him to adopt the career of a shoe-black rather than a mariner. The food, though conforming to the Board of Trade scale, was insufficient to appease the appetite of growing lads, and was supplemented by various subtle strategies. ' Captain Pearse’s reminiscences cover a wide range. He was on a vessel carrying horses from Australia to India “Under sail” this was an anxious business. The motion of the ship often made it impossible for the horses to keep their feet, and water supply was alwavs a problem. The Udston, M Inch sailed from Melbourne at the same time as the Cardigan Castle, lost about 320 out of 400 horses before she reached Calcutta. Sandridge, as port Melbourne was then styled, was infested with larrikins, fnd Captain Pearse remembers a pitched battle be tween a mob of them and a numbei of apprentices. The odds against the latter were five to one and his com panions were having tlie worst of it when the crew of the Sqbraon, latei the Tingira, armed with belaying pins,

took their assailants in tbe eai and scattered them. Captain Peaise a is a Youth, once deserted with a nom at in New Zealand in order to make thei fortunes on the Hokitika goldfields. They were betrayed by the Mao and apprehended but no serious consequences followed this escapade He obtained his master’s ticket "ent into steam and was for some time an officer on R.M.S. Cuzco once well known in Sydney. He has run a blockade during a Haitian revolution. He has travelled extensively throughout the seven seas and six continents, and has equipped himself with material which he has turned into a very interesting book.

THE ENGLISHMAN. “For Ever England” is MajorGeneral Seely’s testimony to his native land and her people. He lias travelled far; but nowhere except in England would he set up his tabernacle. England and the English people were always good, and they aie growing better: “The virtues of honour, faithfulness, and. humour are found in higher degree m this little island than in any other country in the world.” The life is not going out of farming; it is suffering from a severe illness, but it- is a strong patient and there are signs that . the doctors are learning their business and that recovery is in sight. au that the boys of England, to whom tins friendly book of adventure is addressed have to do is to destroy the only enemies they have; thistles, slums, dirt, noise, strikes, lock-outs, envy, cruelty, and party politics although there is nothing wrong with our politicians. Major-General &cely has worked and played with people of all classes in various parts of England, but chiefly makes use of his native Is.e of Wight for 1 the true stories of adventure with which his hook is crowded.