Fei ic w of Be VI ( ws, 1/ lit 13. 



NOTABLE BOOKS. 



9tg 



THE HUMAN SLAUGHTER HOUSE. 



The Human Slau(jhter House. By Wilhelm 

 Lamszus, Translaterl by Oakley Williams 



(Stokes). 



An extraordinary book is Wilhelni 

 Lamszus' " The Human Slaughter 

 House." This is the story of a German 

 civilian who, at the call to mobilisation, 

 leaves his desk, his wife, and his chil- 

 dren, and marches out to war. With 

 keen, merciless strokes the author strips 

 all the deceptive glamour from war. He 

 points out how mechanical invention 

 has changed the " held of nonour " into 

 " the human slaughter house." There is 

 no longer " the brave setting of flashing 

 eyes and glittering steel, and the stirring 

 clash of men at arms," but only " long- 

 drawn-out fronts of flesh and blood op- 

 posed to automatic machinery and the 

 triumphs of the mechanical laboratory." 

 Dynamite drojDped from aeroplanes fly- 

 ing by night, regiments wiped out by the 

 pushing of an electric button — these are 

 some of the triumphs of what Lamszus 

 describes as " the war that is sure to 

 come." The book has made a vivid im- 

 pression on the mind of leaders in Ger- 

 many, and elsewhere on the Continent. 

 Within a few days of its publication, the 

 author awoke to find himself famous, or 

 infamous, according to the point of view, 

 m his own country, and celebrated 

 abroad. No less than eighteen Euro- 

 pean languages have conveyed the sen- 

 timents of his book to millions of 

 readers. Lamszus was master in one of 



the great public schools. When his book 

 appeared he was at once " relieved " of 

 his duties. The primar)' duty of the 

 schoolmaster in Germany, who is a State 

 ofiicial, being to educate not only citi- 

 zens, but future conscripts, it is, of 

 course, nigh unto high treason for such 

 a schoolmaster to write a book with a 

 tendency " to strip the jiomp and cir- 

 cumstance of war of its traditional 

 glamour — war which is an integral fac- 

 tor in the German educational system." 

 The sale of the book was prohibited in 

 the town of its publication, the free city 

 of Hamburg, a proceeding which had 

 the effect of stimulating its sale else- 

 where. Over 100,000 copies of the book 

 were sold in Germany within a few 

 months of its appearance. Lamszus is 

 a |)atriot ; he is a robust character, a 

 trained g)'mnast, a member of the medi- 

 cal profession, and the author of a book 

 on the revolt of the Netherlands against 

 Spain, in which he glorifies war — for its 

 real human national end. The English 

 translation has been made by Oakley 

 Williams, and there is an introduction by 

 Alfred Noyes. In the " front matter," 

 also, there is given a translation of a 

 letter from Dr. A. Westphal, secretary of 

 the " Commission for Education and In- 

 struction "of the LIniversal Peace Con- 

 gress, held at Geneva last }-ear, thank- 

 ing Ilerr Lamszus for having furnished 

 the cause of universal peace with a 

 weapon of considerable importance. 



IN THE CENTRAL CITY SWARM. 



Eicihtcn Years in the Central City Suyrrni. 

 The Story of the Robert Browning Settle- 

 ment, lS<r)-l!n'2. (Hammond, Is.) 



This is the story of a grain of mus- 

 tard-seed, and of its quite unlooked-for 

 ramifications It tells how, eighteen 

 \-ears ago, a small group of men and 

 women, under a strange sense of man- 

 date, went down to live in a dej^ressed 

 district of London, with the aim of prac- 

 tising the rudiments of Christian neigh- 

 bourliness. Centring their work m the 

 liuilding where drowning was baptised, 

 they toc?k the name of the Robert Brown 



inu' Settlement. Thev began in a small 

 way, with men's meetings, women's 

 meetings, clubs for men and bo}s, ]-)oor 

 m.in's law)crs, medical , mission, and 

 oilier fauiiliar forms of benevolent en- 

 terprise. Thev learned to their surprise 

 that Walworth, the district in which the}' 

 \\( irked, had the distinction of contain- 

 ing the geographical centre of the 

 County of London, and might, therefore, 

 claim to be the heart of the Heart of 

 Eiiii)ire. From the small germ so cen- 

 trally [planted unexj^ecled shoots began 

 to a|ipear. The grave\-ard at the back 



