AMUSING ESSAYS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 104, 26 January 1935, Page 19

AMUSING ESSAYS

Learning in the Guise of Entertainment “Unscientific Excursions,” by Frederic Wood Jones. D.Sc., F.R.S. (London: Edward Arnold and Co.) Although, as implied in the title, eminently suitable for those whose minds do not incline toward science, these amusing little essays contain much knowledge and wisdom dressed up as sheer entertainment. The mere titles intrigue the reader: “In Disparagement of Brains,” "Of Sinfulness and Necks,” “Of Stars and Spoonbills,” “The Cult of the Yu-Hu-Lu,” “Of Astronomers and Pansies,” to quote only a few. The author speaks of passports: Nor is there any agreement in this business; at one port the inquisitiveness of the official is directed toward some personal detail that altogether falls to excite the curiosity of the busybody at the next port. I am free to come and go on an English passport without anyone asking as to my parents. . . . Should a visitor spend—altogether against his wish—an hour ashore in New Zealand, then he must make a declaration where his father and mother were born ... it is difficult to see how it can be very useful information to the person in the shabby uniform who reads the declaration. . . As to my habits and my mode of life, no people are so inquisitive as the Americans. . . . Who that was possessed of ordinary human cunning would own up to possessing a “constitutional psychopathic inferiority”? Who would declare their possession of a “loathsome' disease or innocently state that they were “criminals, polygamists, anarchists.” or members of the more beastly groups that follow in this charming book of confessions. . Why does no official show care about my chin when at one time it was his chief concern? There is still a lingering interest in the colour of my eyes . . . but no one is to me as my first love —Arthur James Balfour—in caring for my chin. In “Concerning the Dragon,” Professor Wood Jones tells of the great Ma Shih-huang—-whose reputation as a veterinary surgeon waxed great in China, so great that he became known to the Dragons . . . But the story . . . ends strangely, and with some abruptness: “One day they carried him away no one knows where.” And yet 1 fancy that ending makes the story all the more worthy of belief; no other fate would be fitting for the man who first thought of giving liquorice to a sick Dragon. The reader is likely to acquire some surprising and out-of-the-way scraps of information from his perusal of these delightfully-written essays. He will hear of the Chuit-Chuit, which lays its egg and rears its young on a bare branch, and among other things will find out that if he wishes to feed a yu-hn-lu properly, he must spend his 'spare time chewing chestnuts. NEW THRILLERS “The Hidden Door,” by Arthur Gask (London: Jenkins. 7/-) “Spies of Peace, 1 ' by Wyndham Martyn (London: Jenkins. 7/-). “Hate Island,” by Alroy West (London : Wright and Brown. 7/-). “The Gold of Alamito,” by Charles 11. Snow (London: Wright and Brown. 7/-). “The Holding of Recapture Valley,” by Haymond A. Berry (London: Wright.and Brown. .4/-),