BOOKS AND PUBLICATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13583, 12 September 1908, Page 5 (Supplement)

BOOKS AND PUBLICATION.

That Girl: By Ethel Turner; illustrated by Frances Ewan.—Fisher, Unwin, Adelphi lerraco, London.— "colonial edition" of one of Ethel Turner's most readable books for children will commend itself to her ever-increasing circle of readers. It is charmingly and plentifully illustrated, plainly printed, and attractively bound. For "children" not too young to understand simple English and not old enough to weary at the subtle interweaving of fact and fancy in a distinctly "colonial" story, there has been no better book recently published.

Longs Colonial Library: John Long, London.-" What Woman Wills," by Lucas weave, is another " problem " by this wellknown problem-setter. The lady is a wealthy American girl who goes to Paris as an art student, is engaged to a matter-of-tact American, and jilts him for a Parisian:sed American artist. 1„ the course of the story she poses, veiled, for the indifferent artist who is disconsolably seeking perfection in the human form divine, and in the end she persuades him to accept her love, which lie does by marrying her' and taking her back to Paris. " Amazement," 'by James Blyth, is another attraction for those who approve the realistic and require the problem;" they will find both in this .cheap reprint of a novel that has had a very considerable vogue.

From the Old Dog By Frank Fox. Ijios. C. Lothian, 226, Little Collins-street, Melbourne.— from an Australian exa rime Minister to his nephew are here presented to the public. They are readable and racy, and often humorous. As for instance : —

Don t many. The politician who marries is a bigamist. He is wedded to politics, pledged to the faithful wooing of a constituency, devoted with passionate charm to gratifying the whims of the public more witohingly capricious than any woman. "To paraphrase Machiavelli, try to be friendly to the newspapers—except when it is manifestly to your advantage to be otherwise. Many a political reputation has been helped by a judicious challenge of the press. " In regard to the whole question— judges, cheap railway commissioners, cheap administratorsyou can cheapen an office, but you can't cheapen capable men. They are not common, and so can command their price. When the problem of truly economical control of the vast interests in the charge of our various Australian Governments is solved— ever it is—the solution will not be found in lowering, but in increasing, the prizes offered to administrative intelligence. "Be an optimist as to defence alwaysa businesslike optimist. Of course, Australia can't have at once a great navy and an army to equal France's, but she can do her best. ■..„•./,.;•, . .-.<■ .. ■ ::..:'• .':■', ■ "You must burn yourself up in your work if you wish to be a light to your generation."

The Red Neighbour : By W. J. Eccott. Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh.—Another historical romance, dealing with the times of Louis XIV. of France and with the commissariat difficulties of Turenne. From this it appears that the swindling of Governments by dishonest army contractors is not peculiar to modern" times; the French contractor, Bocal, making millions by mixing chalk with flour, supplying inferior fodder and being generally unscrupulous. But he has a bitter enemy in "the Red Neighbour," a popular Parisian maker of toilette preparations, whom, he had abandoned years before, and who had devoted her life to avenging the wrong done her. Also there is the Marquis de Polignac, secretary to the Minister for War, who undertakes a mission to discover how it is that in spite of the vast sums spent upon it the army never has enough; and his affectionate -wife who follows him to the army, and his daughter who escapes from a convent school for the same purpose. These and other characters have innumerable and exciting adventures, which might have been spun out, Dumas-like, for six hundred readable pages instead of for three hundred only.

_ The Angel and the Author and Others: By Jerome K. Jerome, Fisher Unwin, London.Mr. Jerome is always humorous, with tho kindly humour which makes his readers his friends; nor will those who admire "Three Men In a Boat" be disappointed with this new book, in spite of its prolonged title. It is a, potpourri of conversational jottings, inimitable of its kind. It is quotable from cover to cover, but one illustrative Quotation must suffice:;.. . 7 <

In your own house you can, of course, open the windows, and thus defeat the foreign stove.* The rest of the, street thinks you mad, but then the Englishman is considered by all foreigners to be always mad. It is his privilege to be mad. The street thinks no worse of you than it did before and you can breathe in comfort. But in the railway carriage they don't allow you to ■bo mad. In Europe, unless you are prepared to draw at sight upon the other passengers, throw the conductor out of the window, and take the train in by yourself, it is useless arguing the question of fresh air. The rule abroad is that if any one man objects to the window being open, the window remains closed. He does not quarrel with you he rings the bell, and points out to the conductor that the temperature of the carriage has sunk to little-more than ninety degrees, Fahrenheit. He thinks a window must be open. . - "The conductor is generally an old soldier: he understands being shot, he understands being thrown out of window, but not the laws of sanitation. If, as I have explained, you shoot him, or throw him out on the permanent way, that convinces him. He leaves you to discuss the matter with the second conductor, who, by your action, has now, of course, become the first conductor.As there are generally half-a-dozen of these conductors scattered about the train, the process of educating them becomes monotonous. You generally end by submitting to the law. "Unless you happen to be an American woman. Never did my heart go out more gladly to America as a nation than one spring day travelling from Berne to Vevey.. We had been sitting for an hour in an atmosphere that would have rendered a Dante disinclined to notice things. Dante, after ten minutes in that atmosphere, would have lost all interest iu the show. He would not have asked questions, ±te would have whispered to Virgil: "' Get me out of this, old man, there's a good fellow!' " The carriage was crowded, chiefly with Germans. Every window was closed, every ventilator shut. The hot air quivered round our feet. Seventeen men and four women were smoking, two children were sucking peppermints, and an old married couple were eating their lunch, consisting chiefly of garlic. At a junction, the door was thrown open. The foreigner opens the door a little way, glides in, and closes it behind him. This was not a foreigner, but an American lady, en voyage, accompanied by five other American ladies. They marched in carrying packages. They could not find six seats together,- so they scattered up and down the carriage. The first thing that each woman did, the moment she could get her hands free, was to dash for the nearest window and haul it down. . "' Aslonisnes me,' said the first woman, " that somebody is not dead in this camage.' ''Y- . "Their idea, I think, was that through asphyxiation we had become comatose, and, but for their entrance, would have died unconscious. '"It is a current of. air that is wanted ' said another of, the ladies. ' " So they opened the door at the front of the carriage and four of them stood outside on the platform, chatting pleasantly and admiring the scenery, while two of them opened the door at the other end, and took photographs of the Lake of Geneva. The carriage rose and cursed them in six languages. ; Bells were rung:',. conductors came flying in. It was all of no use. Those American ladies were cheerful but firm They .argued with volubility: they argued standing in the open doorway. The conductors, familiar, no doubt, with the American lady and her ways, shrugged their shoulders and retired. The other passengers, undid their bags and bundles, and wrapped themselves up in shawls and Jaeger nightshirts. " I met the ladies afterwards hi Lausanne. They, told me they had been condemned to a line' of forty francs apiece. They also explained to me that they had not the slight* '. est intention of paying it."