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Though already we have so portentous an array of books jostling each other upon the warshelf, there must be many people who will gladly find the little space into which they may slip a slender volume called A General’s Letters to His Son on Obtaining His Commission (CASSELL).  So slender indeed is the book that by the time you have read the disproportionate title you seem to be about halfway through it.  But here is certainly a case of infinite riches in a little room.  The anonymous writer is deserving of every praise for the mingled restraint and force of his method; you feel that, were the name less outworn, he might well have signed himself “One Who Knows,” for practical experience sounds in every line.  Greatest merit of all, the letters contrive to handle even the most delicate matters without a hint of preaching.  But no words of mine could, in this association, add anything to the tribute paid in a brief preface by so qualified a critic as General Sir H.L.  SMITH-DORRIEN:  “If young officers will only study these letters carefully, and shape their conduct accordingly, they need have no fear of proving unworthy of His Majesty’s Commission.”  This is high praise, but well deserved.  Personally, my chief regret is that so valuable a collection of advice should have delayed its appearance so long:  there would have been use and to spare for it these three years past.

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[Illustration:  THE ARTS IN WAR-TIME.

First Tommy (watching artist engaged in protective colouring).  “MARVELLOUS, AIN’T IT, BERT, ’OW TALENT WILL OUT, EVEN IN THE MOST ADWERSE CIRCUMSTANCES?”

Second Tommy.  “YUS.  WOT I LIKES BEST IS THE EXPRESSION ON THE DAWG.”]

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“The Admiralty announce that several raids were carried out by naval aircraft from Dunkirk in the course of the night of May 21-June 1, the objectives being Ostend, Zeebrugge and Bruges.  Many bombs were dropped on the objectives with good results.”—­Cork Constitution.

The Huns must have found it a very long night.