the pretext for destroying Serbia, and crushing Russia and France if they dared to interfere.  BISMARCK once said that “never are so many lies told as before a war, during an election and after a shoot.”  His own manipulation of the Ems telegram was venial compared to the manner in which the German diplomatists, egged on by their ruler—­whose marginalia on the despatches furnish the most amusing reading in the volume—­used all the arts of chicanery to deceive Europe as to their real intentions and to defeat the efforts of England—­on whose neutrality they confidently counted—­to secure a peaceful settlement.  Though primarily addressed to the German proletariat, Herr KAUTSKY’S book has its value for all of us—­“lest we forget.”

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On page 103 of The White Hen (MILLS AND BOON) we read that the Duke laughed softly. “‘It is just like a romance,’ he sighed happily;” which was precisely where, without intending it, the Duke placed his ducal finger upon the weak spot in the whole business.  Because if ever a story was “like a romance,” and like nothing else on earth, and filled with characters each and all pledged to preserve its unreality at all costs, here is that tale.  The plot, of which there is a generous allowance, turns chiefly upon the problem, when is a white hen less a hen than a jewel casket?  Answer, when she has swallowed, and is erroneously thought to have retained, a famous diamond, upon which an impoverished but noble (see above) French family had depended for the dot that should enable their daughter to wed a plutocratic but otherwise detestable suitor.  I take it you will hardly need telling that this is the moment chosen by Romance, under the expert guidance of Miss PHYLLIS CAMPBELL, to bring along an even more wealthy young American, mistaken (of course) for his own chauffeur and working such havoc upon the heart of the heroine that, when the latter accidentally recovered the diamond from its feathered cache, she very sensibly decided to say nothing about it.  Whereupon, because the other characters, especially an unpleasant Duchess, were unaware that, as the shop announcements say, “Poultry was Down Again,” much profitable confusion resulted, though nothing to impugn the justice of the ducal verdict quoted above.  So that, if your taste jumps with that of his Grace, you also can “sigh happily;” otherwise you will perhaps omit the adverb—­and select a story less exclusively romantic.

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There is a spirit of Yorkshire and a spirit, I suppose, characteristic of Suburbia, and on the outskirts of certain large manufacturing towns there must exist a formidable blending of these two.  To express the double flavour of this essence requires, I should say, a subtler and more elaborate method than Mr. W. RILEY has attempted to use in A Yorkshire Suburb (JENKINS).  He has imagined for the purpose of