NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1751, 27 September 1905, Page 22

NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS.

A NOVEL FOR COLONISTS.

> “Mr Chippendale of Port Welcome,” by Charles Fellows. Hutchinson and ■ Co., Paternoster Row, London. This is a novel that ought to be interesting to old colonists. The author, Mr Charles has had: considerable colonial experience. He was for some time in British Columbia at its foundation as a colony, and was afterawards in Dunedin, being there in the S' ©arly seventies. From Dunedin he travelled over the South Island and part of the North Island. He was therefore * thoroughly acquainted with colonial life over thirty years ago. His novel introduces many colonial incidents, though, it would be wrong to assume that he has drawn any special person in outlining his hero, “Mr Chippendale of Port Welcome.” Mr Chippendale is really a type of the sanguine colonist, and forty years ago such were not uncommon. He may be called a Colonial Micawber. He has always some great enterprise in hand, and, unfortunately, the enterprises generally fail. The author loves Mr Chippendale. He sees in him more good than ill, and even loves him for his foibles. Another character that is well drawn is that of Dr. Suttler, the scientist who loves to do good and to encourage literature and art in the colonies. Dr. Suttler is a hit of a cynic, and it may truly be said of him what the author declares about him, that he often leaves you in doubt as to whether he is serious or joking. His lecture upon the physical constitution of the devil is an. illustration of this statement. Dr. Suttler proved eight things concerning iHis Satanic Majesty:—(l) that he was a vertebrate animal; (2) that he .was '• graminivorous; (3) that he had a dark gi-ey skin; (4) that he was not adapted to life under water; (5) that he had no organs enabling him to support himpelf in the air; (6) that, like all the higher animals he was subject to illness, disease and death; (7) that he had • no power of emitting light; (8) that his most congenial habitat was a rocky and precipitous sea coast. There is scattered through the novel much criticism on present day problems. - For example here is one sentence:“Again, in writing a novel, there is much to be said in favour of the style now in vogue—smart, saucy, flippant', gorgeous with adjectives, and with a sort of ‘superior-person, abolish-all-con-ventionaKty, repeal-the-Ten-Command-toents, knoek-you-down-and-jump-on-you’ flavour about it.” Take another illustration, a dialogue between Mr Tottenham and Dr. Sutt-ier:-—“Mr Tottenham replied: ‘Because belief must always precede evidence. Belief is a concrete fact. Evidence is a mere abstract speculation.’ Dr. Suttler said: ‘Then I suppose you would construct your opinions as they did the houses in Laputa; beginning at the roofs, supporting them by baloons, gradually working and finish by putting in the foundations? I presume you lijean to form your opinions first, and then scratch about to ' find something to support them ?’ ” Take another example: “In politics too, a non-committal style that led people to believe one thing, which, when subsequently explained, could be proved to mean something absolutely different • —such a style flaust be of the highest value- I perceived that its effectiveness would depend upon producing a sense of vagueness and mystery, in- ■* ducing a feeling,* of what learned men call ‘obscurantism,’ but which common people call ‘obflocation.’ ” Perhaps the finest character drawn in the book — a kind, modest girl is Mr Chippendale's daughter; hut for Mr Chippendale himself, the reader will have nothing but pleasure in making lik acquaintance. How a township was laid off, and how it was sold, will be interesting to many who remember the olden days. The author in stating what happened to Mr Chippendale is, we are sure, only reproducing much history, and the things that Mr Chippendale resorted to to keep his head above water were not unknown thirty-five or forty years ago. The book may be called a short history of Herbert Chippendale and his family, but round their life are woven many interesting incidents, some of them true, some of them coloured, and some, no doubt, exaggerated according to the license that is allowed a novel- ' jst. We can promise our readers an hour or two’s delight if they will only take the trouble to read ‘Mr Chippendale of Port Welcome.” It is not like the- ordinary romance that is perhaps

popular nowadays, but it is very full of humour and human interest. Those who are speculating in town sections had better read Chapter 17. Perhaps in some years to come they may appreciate the story of the sale of New North Park. How Mr Chippendale, got his sections sold can be learned if we give a short extract: —“That piece of land, Sir, five years ago, cost only £lO. Now its value, as everybody knows, is £IOO. That is, in five short years, it has increased in value tenfold. What figures can therefore express, r what effort of the imagination can conceive, the increase in value to be anticipated in the next five years? Why, the increase must be stupendous, incalculable. Well now, I am willing to sell you that plot of land at the most moderate price, payable twenty years hence. I will ask you only one quarter of that price in cash, and as to the balance, it can remain at a purely nominal rate of interest. I am not- going to ask any of the present exorbitant rates. No; I shall not ask you to pay 15 per cent., nor 12, nor 10, nor B—no, not even six. Five per cent, per annum! Five per cent, only is what I shall ask you to pay. And looking at all the advantages, looking at the enormous advance in value that is sure to take place in property before the twenty years have elapsed, I really don’t think you will deem me exorbitant in asking £2OO for the plot, of which, as I said before, three-quarters can remain on the mortgage.” A Scotsman’s criticism on Mr Chippendale’s method may also be given:— “You see, the present ostensible value of that piece of land is £100; but as it is charged to you at £2OO, of which you are to pay a quarter in cash (the quarter amounting to £SO), you are really paying down one half of the present value of the property: so the seller has good security. Then, though the interest is nominally only five per cent., yet, seeing it is reckoned upon £l5O instead of £SO, you are really paying fifteen per cent. Then, at the end of the twenty years, to add insult to injury, you will he called upon to pay £l5O instead of £50 —that is three times the principal.” We doubt, however, if there are many Scotsmen about nowadays. The book introduces stories from all classes of society, and, as we have said, will perhaps be more interesting to those who remember the past than to those who are living in the present. Those who have lived in the past will have been acquainted with many Mr Chippendales ; and perhaps those in the present, were they to examine their friends and neighbours, might also come across gentlemen of the same character. —R.S.

“The Fool Errant.” By Maurice Hewlett. William Heinemann, London.

This is a romance of the eighteenth century, and pictures' some early episodes in the life of a. young Catholic Englishman, who is in Italy for the completion of hi® education. Hb is a youth of as lofty ideals and honourable character as one might wish. So endowed is he with high qualities, and soi untainted! by experience that when he finds himself in contact with common humanity succession of misunderstandings occurs. In the fulness of his heart he makes a, trivial mistake, and thus, plunges himself and an estimable lady in a sea, of suspicion and blame. "Her home is temporarily broken up, and his studies cast aside, while he leads the life of a vagabond in search of her forgiveness. In this attempt to expiate his fault he holds himself all unconsciously above the thought, of sin. Episodes in, his wandering career recall the quaint pathos of Laurence Sterne, but the tale, though often subtly humorous, is without a suspicion of Sterne’s sly wickedness. Francis Strelley is so simply and straightforwardly honourable that be finds himself among a, people who cannot understand his ideals or hi® motives. Bieggars, servants, ladies and gentlemen alike misunderstand the purpose of his pilgrimage, and! when they hear his tale, or even catch hint of it, offer him sympathy in his disappointments, and heartily wish him that success which is farthest from his thoughts. In the midst of cynicism, hypocrisy, and! naked and unashamed vice, he goes on his way. Adventure and complication seem endless, but human nature and! human sympathies run through all. Of sterling friendship, personal devotion, love, and fighting Mr Hewlett’s story has no lack. His characters unfold themselves without apparent effort on his part and in his delineation of the manifestation of woman’s love he at times suggests himself as a student of the methods of Charles Reade. A not. unhappy ending rounds off a well-told tale, though in finishing the book one cannot help feeling regret that in the concluding words of the author “The Fool would err no more.” “Saints and Savages: the Story of Five Year® in the New Hebrides.” By Robert Lamb, M.A., M. 8., Ch.B., B.D. Wiliam Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London. This work, as its name suggests, is a story of missionary experience. At the same time it ie'biography and history. While making no pretence to completeness as a record and indeed being somewhat too “patchy” in places, the narra-

tiv© of such portion of the author’s five years’ experience as is dealt with makes good reading. In Dr Lamb’s own words, “The book is the outcome of an effort to weave as simply as possible the incidents and experiences of those five years into a readable story.” From the point of view of the person who seek® merely a story the book may not prove wholly satisfying. But as a literary mosaic, composed; of glimpses of the real life of a missionary in the South Seas, and bright and manifestly modest sketches of the achievements and joys and sorrows of his daily work there, it is as good as anything that has been written on the subject. In some respects, indeed, it is much 'better. Its prominent, and most characteristic feature i® human interest. There are no preaching and! no declamation. The author takes men —white, brown and black —just as he found them, and shows the best in each. Of his own hard life, and heartbreaking personal losses he writes with a fine restraint. Hi® one endeavour was to win men to Christ, and success and failure are alike recorded without pride in the first case or chagrin in the other. With a magnificent devotion, and a fatalism born of their belief he and his friend!® entered upon their work with the one watchword — Duty. What rewards they reaped are recorded withthankfulness, what losses they sustained 'are mentioned as mere incidents of the work.

In the chapter dealing with “The Black Man’s Fate,” Dr Lamb discusses the question of the control of the New Hebrides as follows: —“Meanwhile the French had been trying to obtain possession at all costs, and! to make the islands a happy hunting ground of Noumean ex-convicts. Coupled with this were the forced sales and fraudulent seizure of lands, of which the grab at Iririki, the islet which dominates the principal harbour, was the crowning example. The grab failed, for the rights of British subjects were affected, and the Foreign Office was appealed to. But the natives in the outlying islands had no foreign office to interfere for them. An ignorant, innocent native affixed his mark to a deed, selling an acre of land on the beach. A few years later the deed is produced before a commission, possibly by some one who has purchased the piece of paper in good faith, and it is found to specify a square mile. Strife, the uprooting of gardens and fences, the burning of huts and schools, and possibly bloodshed, may follow, and the native goes to the wall. Indeed, were it not for the missionaries, who at the present moment have some thirty stations with flourishing schools and churches, and who have and have had amongst their number men of the first standing from, America, colonial and the Home universities, and divinity halls, including such names as Williams, Turner, the Selwyns, Patteson, Inglis, Geddie, the Gordons, Paton, and others equally famous, the dismal fate of these islands and islanders would long since have been sealed. For upwards of fifty years these men, at the cost of lives and vessels lost, and hundreds of thousands of pounds expended by the churches they represent, have held and manned the group directly for their Master, and indirectly for the “Empire.” Dealing with the “Drink Fiend,” the author gives an example of the manner in which the degradation of the islanders is accomplished by the work of unscrupulous traders who supply them with ardent- spirits. The writer’s friend and fellow missionary remonstrated with a half-drunken chief in possession of a partly emptied bottle, telling him the stuff was poison.

“Poison? Missionary!” he hiccoughed with a laugh, “Ha, ha! no good you speak all same. Drink, he finish along Noumea? Eh? White man, he finish drink a long time? Eh? Grog, he finish along man-o’-war? Eh? Me savey; suppose grog he good along white man, he good along black fellow. Me no make him ; what name (wherefore) white man ha make him? Poison? No fear! Me fellow no fool!” In the chapter, “The Joy of 1 Living,” there is some splendid descriptions of the beautiful aspects of Nature in the islands, and of the varied and magnificent scenery which helps to reconcile the Ehiropean exile to his lot. The “Wisdom and Morals” of the savage is a sympathetic chapter, in which the author sets forth the results of a systematic attempt to penetrate into the mind of the natives, and learn something of their natural ideas of the “Riddle of the Universe.” There was always, a native told the author, a belief in two spirits—Vyu-Yotab, the Spirit of Light, and Vyu-Bungbung, the Spirit of Darkness. These were in continuous opposition even in their account of the origin of man. “Vyu-Yotab says that* originally all men were four-footed animals, and walked on all-fours. One of these tried to build a house, but he slipped and mad© a hole in the roof, and his legs fell through. So Vyu-Yotab said he would nob do. Then he told anothei animal to try —an animal like a pig, but with, a face like a man’s. He succeeded, so Vyu-Yotab bade him thereafter walk upright.” “But Vyu-Bungbung says that was not the case at all. All men walked upright from the beginning, and the lazy ones who would not work came

to walk on all-fours, and degenerated into lower animals like pigs and cow* and goats—and got face® like them. The writer is struck with the similarity of Vyn-Bungbung’s story to that oi the classic tale of Oi roe’s Chip, and quotes Milton’s lines on the subject. What strikes the student of folk-lore and anthropology is the fact that this is only one further instance in a multitude which prove that the human mind everywhere develop® along like lines, and in it® search for causes often the* crises on parallel if not identical line®. The evolutionist must be gratified, toe, t>o find that it is the Spirit of Light who fathers his theory in the New Hebrides, while those who believe savages to be degenerates from original civilisation, will not be proud to think that their theory is ascribed to the Spirit of Darkness.

The theory of the white man that the savage islander bows dow r n to stocks and stones is not supported l by Du Lamb’s investigations. In reply to his questions the reply was: “No; they do not think them gods. They all the same as when you look at the glass, and you speak ‘Wind, it will blow,’ and ‘Rain, it is coming.’ You think that- glass all the same as God? No!”

“According to Albert and the other, boys around us,” says Dr Lamb, “each stone would speak true to- the chief who owned it-,, and was an obedient instrument in helping him in his special power.” It would seem from this that -the poor heathen is no more to be taunted' with idolatory than the white believer in the divining rod or in the revelations of glove® for crystal-gazing. The extracts given are necessarily brief and give but an inadequate idea of the copious and interesting information contained in Df Lamb’s thirty chapters. The book is dedicated to the students of Edinburgh University and to the author’s fellow countrymen the young men of New Zealand. We commend it to the latter as a work worth more than perfunctory reading, and one which cannot be laid aside without admiration for the author and the highest respect for the honourable ideals of himself and his fellow workers in the cause of disseminating civilisation and the Gospel in the darkest corners of the earth.