NEWS AND NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18197, 16 September 1922, Page 6 (Supplement)

NEWS AND NOTES.

Among " Poems Worthy of Consideration," the London Spectator classes Mr. Bernard O'Dowd's recently published " Alma Venus," published by T. C. Lothian. Youngsters who are acquainted with Mr. J. F. Horrabin's " Noah Family," will hail with delight the announcement that another volume entitled " More about the South Polar Zone ; and all who have been Noahs—and Tim Tosset," has just been published. About 100 delightful humorous drawings enhance the interest of the book. New hope has been aroused in novel readers by a confession from Mr. W. L. George. Tired of the psychological and the psycho-sociological novel, Mr. George is determined never to write another. He is now bent on the telling of a story, with a real plot, with incidents, surprises, conflicts. Like Mr. Michael Sadlier, he has returned to the works of Thackeray. Trollope, and other nineteenthcentury masters, and finds that life in those books is as active a:s it is outside their covers. "Wo Mant & reaction," ho declares. " I was once taken fishing by a little girl of ten, the daughter of a Canadian literary friend, and sought to improve the occasion by saying, ' You know, Dr. Johnson says that when a man goes fishing there is a worm at one end of the rod and a fool at the other.' ' Well,' she said, roguishly, 'I guess you are not a worm.' " Ths is one of the stories told bv Mr. G. B. Burgin, the popular novelist, in " More Memoirs and Some Travels." Many other mirth-evoking yarns are to be found in the book. A short story of some 50,000 words, entitled "Lilian," comes from the pen of Mr. Arnold Bennett. It is a most entertaining little volume, dealing at the outset with modern London life, and recounting the doings of a girl typiste who finds her employer is in love with her. Then follow some good gambling scenes at Monte Carlo. Her lover falls ill and the marriage is hastened through. But death has claimed the man, who by his will has left his girl wife the whole of his London business, to which she returns and carries on.

A new Burns manuscript (regarded by enthusiasts as a valuable find) was brought to light in the Sherriff's Court at Ayr, Scotland, recently, by a singular accident. The sheriff's clerk was making a search for an old document, when ho came across a deed, dated July 22, 1786, in the poet's own handwriting, in favour of his brother Gilbert. The instrument contains a passage* fy which the poet acknowledges himself the " father of a child named Elizabeth, begot upon Elizabeth Paton on Largieside," and conveys to her the copyright of his poems, so far as ho can lawfully do so, when she attains the age of 15 years. Another passage indicates an intention of the poet's to go abroad.