NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16234, 20 May 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.

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Personal, attacks upon monarchy and militarists are not popular subjects with bookwriters. Most British people confine themselves to . a general condemnation, but there is a section, perhaps, that can be ttirred by the personal diatribe and by considerations of the Kaiser, the Crown Prince, and the whole brood. Whether it is worth while to encourage any so specialised animus in literature is yet an open question. " THE SOUL OF A GROWN PRINCE." T. W. H. Crosland, he of the caustic pen, who satirised woman, the Scot, and the Irishman, has written a dissection of the German Crown Prince under the above heading. He wishes to prevent any germ of idea floating in the British mind that there will be any lasting peace or amity with the Germans while any of the Kaiser's children have the slightest prospect of regaining power or prestige after the war. lie dismisses the Kaiser himself with a word or two. It is not of much

consequences as to what is done with him —but as for his son. Mr. Crosland has no faith in the theory -that this young man is merely a negligible quantity. So he proceeds to prove his case that the Crown Prince has inherited from a line of megalomaniacs! ancestors every trait that can make ttim now a dissolute, dishonourable man and that can threaten the world with the possibility of .'.n'rt. such another Hunnish war as we are now enduring.

Ho stands " before the world as a losel, a blackguard, a thief, a liar, a hater of peace, and a lover of bloodshed. And if he were an angel of light, and butter wouldn't melt in bis unholy mouth, I should say that he is his father's son, and engaged with him in the prosecution of a purely aggressive and abominable war."

The Prince as a Thief.

The Crown Prince spent in October, 1914, two nights at the-chateau of the Baroness- de Baye at Champaubert. Madame de Baye communicated the following letter on the subject to the French press:—

•' T%» Crown Prince one who _will not —passed two days in an old chateau. There he pillaged the murium, J in which M. de Baye had carefully preserved the results of 28 years of exploration and archaeological travel.

Breaking all the glass cases in a gallery 45yds long, he ransacked everything, lie stole arms, unique jewels, medals, , precious vases, gold cups he stole also the splendid presents with which the Tsar honoured M. de Baye in recognition .of bis missions to Russia. In the museum of 1812, he stole wonderful ikons, tapestry, miniatures, etc. He has carried away these things most precious to the heart, these souvenirs. He also 'packed up furniture and pictures; but had to abandon the last cases in the' haste of his retreat. Our old servants remained faithful to their duty. Heaven did not allow the Imperial housebreaker to massacre them in the chapel. .-" He laughed, it seems, while looking at the statue of the Virgin, laughed as his abominable father laughed when the Cathedral of Rheims was burned, and to mark his passage, he erased with his soiled boots, at the entrance of the chapel, the . portraits of the Tsar and Tsarina." . Subsequently, the German Ambassador '» Home issued, a communique, in which- he prcfeatodfib bay* been-authorised-to deny > •baroness's - statements,- -while -.to an . American . interviewer, the .Grown Prince himself confided protestations of his innocence,, and, .roundly asserted that the whole disgraceful story" was. a concoc--.tion the English press. :To these repudiations the baroness replied in a second letter, reiterating the charges, and giving the name of a locksmith who had been sent for and forced to assist at the muzzle of the revolver, in the work of opening some of the cases and packing the loot for removal.

Tfte Crown Prince as * Spy. "Every German;" asserts Mr. Crosland, " of whatsoever station and sex, is a natn,JA\ born spy.' . . The two great arms of Germany in' peace time have always been • the notebook arid the camera. - . . I once met a German officer at Cologne who could .tell mo more about the public arrangements of my own native town in Yorkshire than I ever knew or am likely to know. • . . He disjected fearful and irritating statistics upon me in regard to these matters, plainly- with an idea of discovering if his memory would be confirmed by an actual resident. When I assured him that such matters didn't interest me, he seemed astonished. The marvel of the thing was - that the officer, though speaking reasonable English, had never been in England in his Hie. . . Being a German and the " son of a German, Little Willie is, by nature, just as competent a spy as all the rest, and it is more than probable that his various wanderings in the British Isles, in Egypt, India, Turkey, and Russia, enabled him to make more or less valuable contributions to that phenomenal knowledge of other people's affairs upon which - the • Fatherland m> prides itself. . . During his visits, the notebook and the camera were ever with him, and there are • pictures of him still, extant, in the act and the process of taking guileless snapshots of the sights of London." "The unadorned, unvarnished fact about the matter," concludes this sharpened writer, " is that the Kaiser's heir is just as deep in the mud in respect of Germany's subtly laid plot to destroy the liberties of civilisation as the Kaiser is deep in the mire." The " Soul of a Crown Prince" is published by Werner, Laurie, London.

" Women's War Work," edited by Lady Randolph Churchill (C. Arthur Pearson), embodies the first serious effort to trace the war activities of women in the various belligerent countries, and to give a series of clear and convincing pictures of what women have accomplished under new patriotic influences since the beginning of the war. From this book a very clear view can be obtained of women's war work in Europe, America, and the British Dominions overseas during the past 18 months, and scarcely a phase of these activities has been overlooked.

B '«Degenerate Germany "-by Henry de 1 (T. Werner LaurieMs a record of the repellent decadence of Ger--2U5&. n"!""*" cutio " of the whole empire It 1B possible, of course, to find parallels for a number of the charges that the author makes in almost any country - the immorahty recorded of Cologne and other German cities is equalled by m v centres outside Germany; and as fa 7 -,« .tactics of this sort of thing are con .-erned, there is nothing new in the book Bat in the degeneracy of modern German literature the immoral tendencies of Wae nenan and certain modem German music' and similar points, the author offers some very valuable matter for consideration" lie shows that not only are the acts of the nation degenerate, but the whole tone of thought is on the down grade—and obviously a long way down the grade. The work is biassed, beyond question, but ..none the leas it makes a study of sinister and at times horrible interest, as showing to what depths standards of conduct can sink under the doctrine of "might is right." LIGHT FICTION. ."Looking lor Grace "—is the title of Mrs. ' Horace Tremlott's new book (Lane, London)and it strikes quite a new war note. For the authoress, while writing comedy, has very subtly hit off the fine distinctions of the British woman's mental attitude to the war. There is a widow, "surely a type. Her husband went to the war. She being a passive, don't-blame-me-if-anytbing-happens, resistor H« would

not take the clothing she suggested. He died. She adopted' the correct" pose: and continued to lire her placid conventional life. And now her son took it' into "his head to go. .Well; no one ; could say "she encouraged him ! However, from the front came a letter of condolence in. which, the clumsy man wrote that the major's,last words were, "Tell Grace I have done what I could." Mrs. Massinghanrs name "happens not to be. Grace. Who is Grace?? Bombshell, number one. Then inquiry - at"; the solicitorV discloses the fact that prior to his death the soldier had realised on -j fixe thousand pounds' worth of securities. Why ? For ' whom ? Presumably for ! "Grace." " J

Mrs. Massingham's son, training for the front, is secretly engaged-to Lovie, the orphan who lives with her aunt:'and another soldier named Drake is in lore with a Mrs. Burmester: a pretty widow who has a hand in all the patriotic work of the moment- Then there is an old serving-man named Evans, who takes a mysterious packet to Mrs. Burmester, and whom Mrs. Massihgham finds at his old master's desk in' the night hours. Abundant material for complication and for burlesque. This" is not lessened by the introduction of Grimaui, a Belgian refugee, suspected of being a German sp£. Mrs. Tremlett handles her characters, and particularly .Mrs. Massingham, with a very skilful, humorous pen, and eventually closes with the marriage of the sorted pairs, and the solution of the " Grace" mystery.

" Straws Upon the Water"— F. Thickness*-Woodington (Allen and Da win, London) —is an uneven story, with a trifle too much insistence on the' melodramatic element. Miss Dacre, the maiden lady, is successfully drawn as the genr».ons arid kindly woman who helps others to be happy. Helen Masson, who falls in love with Miss Dam's nephew, Dick Mowbray, is the small township vonng ladv, who being deceived by Mowbray, hides herself and falls in the social grade until eventually she becomes a mill hand. Mowbray has searched for her for years, when he discovers her in this capacity. However she is reinstated and becomes' Miss Dacre'» companion: "and he having thoroughly scourged himself by giving up his fortune and working as a dockhand so that he may feel to every nerve as Helen must have felt m her.enforced degradation, he inherits his aunt's money and is marked out for land ownership in Australia.

RIBBONS AND MEDALS. This useful pocket encyclopaedia of all that pertains to naval, military, an civil medal lore is from the pen of' Lieutenant Taprell Doriing, R.N (George Philip, London) : and its information is most concise and compact. IHustratnons are given, in colour of the ribbons in tone of all the medals issued. At a glance any inquirer can obtain in a few words all that he wishes to know concerning such matters. -