THE WANDERLUST.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1246, 5 March 1914, Page 40

THE WANDERLUST.

INTERESTING TRAVELS.

The wanderlust, which is a so significant feature of our modern world, grips each and all by the throat. Some attain; some do not. Amongst diose who nave gone forth “even unto the ends of the earth” not the least is Mrs. Ada A. Holman, well known in literary circles across the Tasman Sea, and wife of the Hon. W- A. Holman, Premier of New South Wales. “My Wander Year” (William Brooks and Co., Sydney), which lies before us is the brilliant recohd of scenes and personalities met in other lands which originally appeared as a series of articles in the Sydney “Daily Telegraph.” It is an interesting and bright account of the writer’s wanderjahr. “ First impressions,” says the author, “have a value beyond all others,” and in this distinctly original and interesting book the clearness of the impression made on a peculiarly sensitive and retentive mind by new, strange, and absorbing scenes is vividly portrayed. London; London the mighty centre of an Empire; contained a great surprise. “To find, instead of dirt and gloom, unwholesomely-packed streets and cramped conditions, exquisitelykept roads and footpaths, trees and gardens Everywhere, cheerful broad houses, guiltless of spot and speck, made elegant with light curtains and blinds, and gay with window boxes of flowering plants, is as unexpected as pleasing. The famous London fog even failed to come up to expectations, and the writer suggests that Whistler invented the London fog even as Turner invented the London gunset-

London is not a city, says the traveller, so much as a world. A world wherein every phrase and as-

pect of life finds expression, and each and all are mirrored in these interesting pages. The vast charm of London held a traveller to whom came such unique opportunities of intercourse with the most advanced thinkers on economical subjects such as John Burnes, and the- workers in the innermost recesses of the depths. Of John Burns, head of the Board of Trade, man of the -people now controlling a staff of 800, and also outside employees numbering 150,000, the writer gives a vivid pen picture. “Between 60 and 70 years of age, nuggety and strong in build, and with the glow of perfect health upon his lined, but far from care-worn, cheeks. The face is surrounded by a trim, white beard, and a rapidly-extending forehead, lit by beautiful dark grey eyes unclouded as a baby’s, yet alert and penetrating,” the man stands before you.

From the wonderful West End, with its garish display of food and delicacies, the investigator went into the region where the problem' of the British child has evolved a ‘ Necessitous Children’s Act,” under which

children can be fed at the expense of the ratepayer and at the discretion of the headmaster.

The subject of the underground traffic of the metropolis is one of amazement to visitors, and the speeding up -that has taken place within the last decade is one of the pheno--mena of the present age. The description of the gorgeous carnival of the Coronation is very inte. esting to members of the Empire so far away- The parts taken by the aristocracy of England in their hereditary roles was astonishing, and the writer remarks how strange it was to see shrewd, worldly-looking men like the Dukes of Somerset and Devonshire and the Earl of Shaftsbury arrayed in such garish splendour. The Duke of Norfolk, “a very ■small mjan with a straggly beard,” was more in the picture. His robe was quite dingy and his ermine bands frayed and worn as befitted the descent of England’s premier earl. From the Coronation is but a step to the burning political question

day of British politics, and the writer gives .a vivid snapshot of the “most adored woman in the three kingdoms, the most detested, the most dreaded, the most reviled” Mrs. Pankhurst. “She came on to the platform in a picturesque black and white evening frock that suited her slim elegance to perfection. She turned her interesting face, with its pathetic, somewhat tired, expression, upon the great space of the Albert Hall, with its packed thousands, and in a few sentences had roused that vast assemblage to a pitch of frenzy,” never before wit-

nessed by the Australian visitor. Another name well known and dearly loved this side of the Equator is Beatrice Harraden, “ a dear little brown woman,” surrounded and shut in by manifold books- Other notable women whom the writer describes are Mrs. Sydney Webb, well known to New Zealanders, and the “Socialistic Countess,” the Countess of Warwick.

Not only the personalities but also the places of England are laid before the reader of this interesting travel book. The England of the fairy dells and flower-laden lanes, the England where Browning loved and longed to be, which inspired the eccentric genius William Blake, and Tennyson's lyrics and songs, and where Kingsley wrote his prose idylls, charms and calls over all the world away in these pages. *

On the Continent the writer wandered through the Paris of the revolution, where the foundation stones of freedom were lai,d, not only for France, but for the world. “The Paris of the Quarter” is also depicted, the Parisian at home and the Parisian abroad, the South of France, the chequered East, and even so far away as distant Slomaliland all pass

across the page of this indefatigable and brilliant journalist, whose roverings are here chronicled as “My Wander Year.”