LAND AN D NN' A T E K . 
February 3, 191G. 
Contemptible. Ktail, lui ln^lalK^. the ejctraordinary 
blulf ^\l^icll appeared in the New York Tribtmc over his 
name, towards the end of the year : — 
" It is rumoured that the ItaUan army is destined to 
defend Egypt on behalf of the English." 
" France and Russia have been so thoroughly beaten 
that were they left to themselves thpy would renounce 
all hope of victory." 
" England sends countless legions into the field 
against us." 
(The total force voted so far by Great Britain is 
about half the German mobihsed forces for the war, and 
the numbers actually in the field against Germany proper 
less than an eighth. This nonsensical sentence is speciti- 
eally applied by Bernhardi not to the Allies in general, 
regarded as the miserable servants of Britain, but to the 
British and Colonial soldiers.) 
" By the time these lines are read Roumania and 
Greece will have definitely settled upon their line of 
conduct." 
Then, of the strokes in the Champagne and Loos, 
vou have the following : — That they were " driven back 
with heavy loss . . . " and that " the recapture of 
such German positions as were lost is being actively pro- 
ceeded with." 
" The Russian armies were driven to a retreat \vith 
the utmost precipitation " (just under one mile a day). 
" The Russian offensive in (ialicia has exhausted 
its strength. They have ceased their attacks and have 
retreated." (This was on the eve of the recent vigorous 
movement in Bessarabia.) 
" The evacuation of Kiev has already begun." (!) 
" It is in the cause of English and French financiers 
that the present war is being waged " (which shows that 
these gentlemen were able to command at will an ultima- 
tum from Berlin to St. Petersburg and Paris !) 
"The Itahans on the Isonzo front are ten times more 
numerous than their adversaries." (That is, the Italians 
on the Isonzo front have from three and a half million to 
five milUon men.) 
" The King of Italy is suffering from a complete 
mental collapse." 
Only Samples. 
These are only samples of the sort of thing for which, 
coming on the top of much else, a little less vague and 
rhetorical, but increasingly unconvincing, the highest 
name in German military hterature is made responsible 
in the United States newspapers at this moment. 
There is something more : There is something which 
would be inconceivable from the hps or the pen of say 
Joffre or Castelnau or Haig or Cadoma or Foch, to wit, 
specific prophesy of the cheery detailed sort, surely never 
written before except by quite irresponsible young journal- 
ists who were not bound to sign their names. 
Thus we are told that the Austro-Germans must 
of course take Dvinsk and Rovno and that quite probably 
all this will have been done " before the present article 
appears in print." 
The same jolly and really futile temper breaks out 
about the Senussi. They are just going to bowl over the 
English in Egypt. (This in November.) India, mean- 
while, is about to break out into a " dangerous revolt." 
(Also in November). The British in the Gallipoli Penin- 
sula will not be able to get away, they will be destroyed by 
the winter storms which will prevent their getting food. 
And, in general, the German Army (not the Magyars, or 
the Bulgarians, or the Austrians, or the unfortunate 
Poles and Roumanians and Alsace-Lorrainers , and 
Servians, pressed into the service) has already won the 
war, and the reason of this now accomplished victory is 
that the " mental and moral " value of the writer's 
compatriots is so immensely superior to those of anybody 
else. He writes thus knowing that half the German 
effectives are lost for ever, that the whole policy of his 
country is to save what can be saved, and that he is 
consciously and deliberately making worthless rhetorical 
and pohtical points, not only false in themselves, but not 
within a thousand miles of sober military analysis. 
The whole thing is pitifully weak and inefficient and 
it may quite possibly be true that we gain more by lotting 
Prussia thus make a fool of her principal men and of lier 
whole cause, than by competing with her in the same field. 
NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES. 
" Exile." Dolf Wyllarde. (T. Fisher Unwin.) 6s. 
Clautlia Everard, the wife, Edgar Everard, the husband, 
and Richard Hervey, the other man, are the protagonists uf 
this book. A concurrent plot, with a fresh young Englisli 
girl and her love affairs for interest, bores the reader and 
dilutes rather than relieves the main story, which is that 
Claudia, having found out that Everard is a dishonourable 
l)rute, ;md, moreover, being threatened with nmrder at 
his hands, goes over entirely to Hervey, whom she loves. 
Thereat one IS inchned to question whether two wrongs make 
a right, or whether, under all the circumstances, Claudia was 
wrong. 
Tlie setting of the story is leminiscent of Aden, a sort of 
tropical station where the temptations to drink, to talk 
scandal, and to make material for scandal — if only as subject- 
matter for conversation— are almost irresistible. The subject 
of Claudia and the other man is handled frankly, but the 
author is slightly lacking in tlie sense of proportion, and 
totally lacking in the sense of humour, which is very mucli 
akin to that of proportion. Still, it is an interesting and well- 
told storj', a stimulating variant of an eternal problem. 
" Moby Lane and Thereabouts." By A. Neil Lyons. (John Lane.) 
6s. 
Mr. Lyons has transferred his affections from London 
streets to Sussex byways, and in his book he presents the 
habitants of Sussex with the mixture of humour, pathos, 
and even tragedy that characterised " Arthur's" and " Six- 
penny Pieces." He is not quite so happy in his rendering 
of the Sussex dialect as in the reproductions of Cockneyisnis, 
but in the presentment of village character his touch is as 
sure as ever. 
The Mobies, the butcher's boy, the Chickun-fatter, and 
the rest of the people in these short sketches, are real people ; 
their weaknesses are ruthlessly reproduced, so that we either 
shudder at. them, laugh at them, or sympathise with them, 
and, whatever the emotion riiay be, it is a real emotion. The 
book is mainly in lighter vein, and gives much cause for 
laughter, but a sketch here and there gi\es cause for thought 
as well. A better collection of short stories than this from the 
pen of a single author will be hard to find. 
" Many Thanks — Ben Hassett." By H. de Hamet. (Simpkinr 
Marshall and Co.) 6s. 
Ben Hassett is one of the most irritating criminals that 
ever figured in a book of detective stories, for the reader 
never knows whether Ben Hassett is Ben Hassett, or whether 
he is Cliarles Manning's uncle, or somebody else. Manning 
starting in the story as a private detective, loses liis post 
through being outwitted by Hassett in the first attempt at 
capture of the criminal, and the book takes us through a 
series of sucli attempts, until at the end Hassett is trapped by 
the merest chance. 
Tlie book is unlike other detective mysteries in that 
neither criminal nor detective is infaUible ; it is breezily 
written, and a love interest is not lacking, though, as is usual 
in such books, the lady of the romance is a very shadowy 
figure. A distinct sense of humour and a good deal of origin- 
ality combine to make this a relief from the general run of 
detective fiction, and we heartily recommend it as diverting 
work. 
" In Pastures Green." By Peter McArthur. (J. M. Dent and 
Sons.) 6s. net. 
Apparently the only reason Mr. McArthur had for taking 
up farming was that of making a living by journalism, and the 
experiment proved a howling success. " Lecturers for the 
farmers' institutes made it a point to call on me when they were 
in the neighbourhood, and after the first shock was over pro- 
ceeded to gather specimen? of noxious weeds that they found 
it hard to get elsewhere," for the farming was done in a " ranili- 
hng, desultory way," between spells on the typewriter. 
The book makes a picture of a Canadian year that cannc^t 
be read without laughter, and it is characterised throughout by 
little bits of wisdom and shrewdness, as well as by evidence of a 
strong love of nature and study of country life. " In spite of 
the Shorter Catechism," says the author, " the chief end of 
man is to make a living," and obviously, since his journalism 
is so good, it would be a pity if he tooic to farming seriously 
and abandoned the making of books of this kind. 
The beauty and fertility of Ontario, and the superiority 
of country life over city existence, are well brought out, but 
they are mere incidentals, all the same. Whether he is specu- 
lating on ethics, strugghng with refractory cows, or out fox- 
hunting with the boys, the author is always witty and inter- 
esting, and wlien he sets out to raise a laugh, which happens 
with commendable frequency, he succeeds. 
