BOOKS and BOOKMEN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16622, 14 April 1928, Page 10

BOOKS and BOOKMEN

THE' CANNIBAL ISLANDS.

"A Vagabond in Fiji," by Harry L.Foster. When , Mr. Harry Foster started for.the South Seas he had in his pocket a cablegram:from an American magazine editor/ offering him the pleasant job of dining -with cannibals, investigating "wild '• vamps," and (if necessary) "jumping overboard with knife between teeth arid fighting maneating sharks." But life in the South Sea's 'is no longer'what romance has pictured it. Perhaps, \ indeed, it never was. At. any rate, as Mr. Foster steamed south, America was too much with him. The wireless operator on the .boat brought word of New York baseball scores and the .Chicago executions, and when he got to Honolulu and asked the young woman in a tourist bureau where he might: find ;a real Hawaiian living in a grass hut, she referred : him' to the Bishop Museum. ' % '.''■' •

But'by the time he got to PagoPago he found .something he had never found in America. This was an old native, who kept offering him his various possessions, saying, "You want. 1 ? "and; when Mr. Foster explained that he did not wish to buy anything, he learnt, that the old man was a big chief, who was anxious to present'.him:with the best thing he had, 'as a., souvenir ■' of Samoa} ;' In Tongatabu'again' he was, :shown ,a houso'resolved '.fdrthc-'age'd f-'iffeft,; whoso familiok.had no further use for their presence. "In tonga,'.' ho was told, "'when young fellow grow up and want wife, old fellow jgo nway, maybe to woods,, wtiere he no make trouble. In America, no do that? Always,' in Tonga." At Apia he saw the grave of. Stevenson, and found that the.natives still glowed With pride when he was spoken of as '"Tusitaia." 'And in the Fijian Islands,, though the natives were now almost servile .to the American visitor, he met at. least one man who recalled the day* of horror. Ho described the Fijiaus of his youth as "mighty chunks from a captive and ate them raw, while he writhed-in agony."

NEW YORK NIGHT LIFE! "New York Nights," by. Stephen : Graham. Mr. Stephen . Graham's knowledge of the night life of New York i.- like that of Sam Wcller's of Loii'loii, extensive-and peculiar. If there he any corner-of that city when the shades of evening have fallen that he has not v'sited, one Would like to know of it, for'nothing seems t 6 have been hidden from his 'eyes,' whether it be in "speakeasies," "petting dives," •''Chinese theatres, dancing saloons like Blossoniland, or '' flap houses,'' as he calls the mission halls. New York, he tells us, representing the culmination of our modern type of commercial civilisation, is the greatest and ■ most artificial city in the world, portentous, spectacular/bewildering, and never more mi than at night. The police inspector who congratulated the author on having come from n land where there was more liberty was surely speaking with his tongue in his check, for Mr. Graham seems to have found liberty enough to slip from the avenues of the city into the sidewalks," and find there' men and women almost every law with impunity. The law, indeed, counted for little, especially where drink was concerned. It flowed freely, and it was not always dear, as many people might suppose it ought to have been under the Prohibition Act. Mr. Graham came across an itinerant bootlegger running round in his car delivering gin at two dollars a bottle, such gin as in England would have cost at least 12s. When ho needed liquor for a party ho telephoned a bootlegger, and said plainly just what he wanted, and it came —apricot brandy at 3.50 the litre, and the .like. Authentic rum comes in largo quantities from the Indies, and is very cheap. Most liquor sold by a "reputable bootlegger"—there arc evidently moral planes in .bootlegging —is cheaper in New York than in London. Indeed, he goes so far as to say that in general Prohibition has caused a cheapening of drink in the United States.

Tile "speakeasies," ho tells us, are a remarkable feature of the new American life, and "with the right sort of lady on your arm you can obtain admittance into .any resort." For "Tight" read "pretty," and you catch. Mr. Graham's meaning. The fact is, and it is a strange comment on chivalry, plain-looking women are regarded' with suspicion. In America they are ardent temperance reformers, and belong to purity leagues, so the "doormen" have orders to exclude them. Mr. Graham has tried, and he writes from experience. Indeed, he seems to have tried, or at any rate seen, everything in the bad, mad, kalidoscope of New York night life, from Fifth-nveim<y to the Bronx, and from wealthy, negroes arid 1 Chinese down to the drogs of the -American

Babylon. It is not a pleasant picture he dra>vs, but it leaves us in bo doubt as to its truth and fidelity. The utter lack of moralising would demonstrate that.

NAVAL OCCASIONS,

"Blue Jackets —and Others" contains some delightfully humorous sketches by Mr. Charles Grave. In an introduction "Bartimcus," who, as a naval officer, speaks with authority, observes that to be funny about sailors, the sea humorist must understand a great deal of what goes on in their minds. Mr. Grave possesses that knowledge. Of course, it is impossibleby description to convoy an adequate idea of the effect of a drawing. But; Mr.'Grave's,typical Jack Tav is Mr. Kipling's' "robust and brass-bound man,"'large; iniperturable, and endowed, with a, gift for repartee.! In H.M; Navy Chinese appear to go by the generic name of "Oswald." In one sketch an attenuated Chinese steward remarks to a massive, hardbitten •gunlayer, who has just been appointed to the ship: ."Last voyage me submalined." "That's extremely sad, Oswald," is the reply. "Have you written to the Admiralty about it?" At.a sailors'.concert.the M.C., introducing a-. Blue Jacket who.fancies hiinsolf':h§ a' basso, annburieißs: "Mr. 'lclis.'will nUw,oblige :: ;^ifh,'. several 4icr7thjih^ siop'onllt picks' face is priceless. An English docker is having a heated" discussion with a Scotsman on a wharf. Alongside the wharf is lying a-steamer* the bows of which bear tho name ."Clan Mackay.'' Over the bulwarks arc leaning three unmistakeable "hinese. •' Says the docker by way of concluding the argument and pointing to thpm: "Well, 1 go up there, then, an' talk to your blinkin'. Scotch pals."