BOOKS OF THE DAY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 16749, 2 January 1915, Page 14

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

A Woman in China. Mrs Mary Gaunt, the talented Australian novelist and traveller, is to be .h. congratulated'upon having in her Most V?Work; “ A "Woman in China” (T. Werner Laurie), produced one of the freshLLest,'raciest arid most generally entertaining books of travel that has been published for some time past. Mrs Gaunt is connected by marriage with Dr Morrison, the famous “ Times ” cor- / ’ respondent at Pekin, and through his " .influence no doubt was able to undertake expeditions into the interior or China, which for others might have been very dangerous, indeed impossible. Those who know Mrs Gaunt s book. ,Alone in West Africa,” will find m her new hook the same proof ol the courage, resourcefulness and ready wit which, in China ns in Africa, proved such valuable assets. Mrs Gaunt scorns the beaten tracks of, the globe-trotter ■►..■ and ordinary tourist, and in this re-■-■i cord of her wanderings in China brings ever- to bear upoii the sights she sees and the people she meets the most observant of, eyes, and the result being a wealth of curious and out of the, way information rarely to be met with in works of travel. She spent some time in Pekin; where she witnessed the elaborate ceremonies attaching to the funeral of an Empress, hut. it is when she gets away well into the interior, and shows us how . the long-suffering, heroically patient peasants live, that I find her narrative most interesting . She pays an eloquent testimony to the work done by tho missionaries, specially eulogising .tne efforts of the Mission to the Blind established by thrt Into Sir Hill Murray. Callous as the Chinese u are reputed, and, so it would seem, *" r rightly reputed to be, with regard ■to human suffering the blind beggars of China excite the pity of his countrymen as well as the European visitor. <•• Says Mrs Gaunt:— On the roadside, again and again in a country place where many people are passing, I nave seen a half naked man ./■' who looked as if he had never since liis birth ever looked at water, clad, or rather half clad, in filthy rags with raw red sores where his eyes should ■”<• have been. He was so horrible, so ghastly a specimen of humanity that lie seemed almost beyond pity. And yet a, blind person always receives a _ certain amount of respect and consideration from the Chinese, even from tho poorest Chinese; Never in his hearing would the roughest rickshaw coolie call him Hsia Tne, that is, “Blind man.” That would be discourteous. ... Though ho is only a beggar, forlorn, * hungry, unkempt, he is still addressed bv all - passers ns “ Hsien Sheng, .“‘Before Born,” a title of respect .that is given to teachers, doctors and men of superior rank and age. i. • Naturally, Mrs Gaunt has a good deal to sav about the Chinese woman, her dress, her up-bringing, her life as X a girl, wife and a mother. Tho abominable foot-binding custom which made tho Chinese girl suffer martyr- ~ dom in the name of fashion, she gives n lengthy and. interesting description. “ Poor woman!” says the author. ... “ They havo a saying in China that a •woman eats bitterness.” As I went through the villages in the morning and evening, I could hear the crying of tho children. . . , / .The little girls cried because the uandages on theirj feet wore being drawn more tightly. Always it is a gnawing pain, and the only relief tho little girl can get. is by pressing tho calf of her log tightly against the odgo of the k’ang. The pressure stops the flow of the blood and numbs tho feet s ..f ns long as it .is,kept up, but it-can- ’ not bo kept up long.' aiid with tho onrush of blood, comes the increase of •'.' pain—a pain that the tightening of the bandages deepens. ... “Try,” said one'doctor, “ walking with your toes ,v crushed under your sole, the arch of your font pressed up till tho whole foot is barely four inches long, and s;> - yoil can only walk on your heel, and see if you don’t suffer—suffer in all parts of your body. They say,” ho went on, “ that while there arc many peaceful, kindly, old .men among the Chinese, every woman is a shrew. And I can well believe it. What else ,*• could you expect? Oh, , women have a mighty thin time in China. I don’t believe there is any place in the world where they have a worse.” The custom. Mrs Gaunt says, is ■dying out among the more enlightened in the' towns, but in tho country it is in full swing. There is a curious belief that the woman with small or bound feet ■‘cures more for - tho caresses of her lord than she with natural feet.” A man does not choose his wife in China. His mother does *•’ that for him, but although lio may pot even seo her. beforo marriage,* he can ask questions about her, and the question ho ■rt generally asks is not “Has she a Pretty face?” but “Has she small icet?” and even if he did not think about it, the women of his family would '. consider it for him. As to what tho Chinese can become when inspired by a jmatieism and hatred of the foreigner, )Irs Grant tells some ugly stories, liven in the fortified British Legation quarter at Pekin there is ’. always present tho “Great Fear.” That same “Great Fear” is multiplied a hundredfold in the isor£f lated mission houses and vice-con- ? sulatos in tho far interior. A notable featuro of the book is its illustra•7! tions. These ■'■number' over one hundred, and represent not only the famous buildings, ancient and modern, • of the country, its scenery, and so forth, but every conceivable feature of xhe everyday life of the people. A copy of Mrs Gaunt’s book should find iV ’ a place in every public library. Un- % fortunately the price is not stated on the copy received for review. (The Men of To-morrow. In “Tho Men of To-morrow” (Thomas C. Lothian, Melbourne), Miss ■ Judith C. Oninus, an Australian lady, who for sixteen years has been zealously employed in child rescue work, more particularly grappling with tho boy ■ problem as it presents itself in the life of Melbourne's newsboys, sets forth the results of her two years’ special jtudy and inquiry in England, America Rnd the Continent, into the latest and best methods of reaching and rescuing homeless or neglected children ana Striding them into the path which leads lem .to an industrious, moral, happy ■'<. imd useful life. In America the author ■-'. visited and personally studied the inUtitutions which have sprung up largely through the untiring endeavours of . social reformers such as Judges Pincktoey, of Chicago, Lindsey, of Denver, and Mr Newton Baker, the Mayor of Cleveland. The information she gleaned as to the working of various associations, settlements and boys’ clubs in Denver, Chicago, Boston and elsewhere in the United States is most interesting, and similar investigations in 4 London, Manchester and Liverpool , t were aquully productive of uMfulnint#.

Reformatory treatment such as that in vogue at the famous Borstal Institutions for lads is dealt with in detailEverybody who is interested in the problem of how best, to deal with homeless, neglected or criminal children should procure a copy of Miss Onians’s valuably suggestive bookEveu in a country so happily conditioned as New Zealand, the problem is already presenting itself in our large centres of population, and to members of Parliament, ministers of religion, and all who are interested in educational rescue work amongst- city boys and girls, this hook should he most practically useful. The illustrations from photographs include views at various boys’ colonies, farms, etc(Price 3s 6d.) For TUB CIULUBCX.

Ward,- Lock and Co.’s “Wonder Book” (Ward, Look nml Co., per Whitcombo and Tombs) is now a well-estab-lished annual, a copy of which is always to be welcomed in homes where there are children. This excellent publication is this year as full of good things as ever. Primarily a picture annual, it contains twelve full-page coloured plates, and hundreds of other pictures in monochrome. Tho stories and sketches cover every phase of youthful interest, and are contributed by writers of acknowledged reputation ns purveyors of literature specially adapted to juvenile understandings and tastes. Christmas has come and gone, but it is still a far cry to tho end of the holidays. A copy of “ Tho Wonder Book ” is an admirable insurance against that juvenilo ennui and restlessness whidh is so often provoked by a wet day or a long evening when there is “no one to play with.” In such cases the “Wonder Book” can be played as a trump card. Under the title of “Our Soldiers and Sailors” (Ward, Lock and Co., per Wliitcombe and Tombs) appears a bulky tome of close on 600 pages, tho contents of which are artistic stories and pictures describing the everyday life of the Empire’s defenders in war and peace. The volume is in fact a ]>erfeet cyclopaedia for youthful study and entertainment of military and naval life and affairs, and at a time like the present, when in every household conversation is so largely devoted to warlike subjects, its pact's should be eagerly scanned. Are the Indian troops mentioned in the cablegrams, the children can turn to this capital hook and find therein a complete history in brief of tho origin and development of our army in India, with pictures of the various types of European and native soldiers, scenes from Indian military history and so on. The armies of the Continent as well as of Great Britain are each described in detail, and in the naval section will bo found pictures of the latest types of battleships, cruisers, destroyers and submarines. There are also pleasantly informative chapters on the British merchant marine. A special feature of tho book is its generous wealth of illustration. Twenty-two well executed coloured plates, together with no fewer than six hundred monochrome illustrations, many full-page, others in the text, make' the book a military and naval album of permanent value as a pictorial record o.f the two services. At six shillings this is an astonishingly choap production.

- Yet another edition of Lewis Carroll’s perennially popular “ Alice in Wonderland ” comes from Messrs George Bell and Sons (per Whitcombe and Tombs). A special feature of the edition, winch is beautifully printed and tastefully bound is a series of coloured pictures by Alice B. Woodward, who has achieved no small fame as an illustrator of children’s books. I am old-fashioned enough to prefer the black and white drawings by the late Sir John Tenniel with which readers of “Alice” in the early edition are so familiar. But Miss Woodward’s illustrations have both grace and humour and colour pictures seem for the time being to have ousted the old black and white work from popularity, with children if net with the oldsters. Those who have yet tho pleasure beforo thorn of making acquaintance with the quaintly charming story could not do better than let “Alice” make her bow to them in the prettily produced edition, which forms, by the way, one of the wellknown “Queen’s Treasures” series in which so many old favourites have been issued k by Messrs Bell and Sons. (New Zealand price 35.)