Evening Star Newspaper, June 29, 1930, Page 90

& SHORT HISTORY OF THE BRITISH EM- BASSY: Forty Years in & School of Diplo- macy. Illustrated. By Charles P. M. Browne. Washington, D. C. in the forced growths of modern improvement, city expansions and the like. Here the old, the revered, the significant—here, in a word, meekly gives way before the bludgeoning young giant, Progress. American cities have not yet had time to sequire that ineffable quality of atmosphere in which many a center of the Old World is so rich. And even so little of this peculiar ripen- as a few of them in the East have been to achieve is likely, any day, to be swept away for newer and shinier and bigger emblems of a rich and important worid. The Capital has already sustained no little of loss to its historic appearance and significance by way of this march of improvement. Necessary loss, to be sure, and in the long run possibly redeemable. Loss, nevertheless. A case in point: The old British Embassy House, 1300 Connecticut avenue, is on the edge of becoming a wreckage of miscellaneous build- ing stuff, its rich content of international ac- tivity mere memories drawn off as individual geminiscence, as a work-shop for writing men and women. At exactly the right moment Charles Browne offers his book of personal recollections on the subject of the embassy. For for more than 40 years backward these recall- ings run. Yet this is a little book of hardly more than a hundred pages. Compact, con- osntrate, here is a very substantial body of fact oencerning the international activities of this historic bit of the British Ewpire transplant- ed to America for the purposes of diplomatic imtercourse. Here vou will come first upon a shetch of history, admirably concise, setting out the facts of the embassy itself. And here are valuable lists—lists of British Ambassadors %o the United States, of prime ministers of the period included, of our own Secretaries of State for the same term. The death of Queen Vic- toria finds place here in memorial spirit and that of King Edward as well. The visit of the Prince of Wales brightens the story and social eveats of international significance receive their share of attention. The period of the World War takes prominent place in events and missions. ‘The visit of Prime Minister Hon. Ramsay Mac- donald receives additional stress by virtue of the fact that never before had a British prime minister visited the United States during his official incumbency. It is not possible to name even_ all the high points in this little book of admifably concen- trate excellence, of such substantial and well selected excellence. Every page is one of clear imformation set out in a perfect economy of thought and space. ““This book by Charles Browne, the invaluable ROWTH is a ruthless process. Es- ( W pecially does this fact stand clear Ambassador to inhabit the old house, delighted be able to launch this book into the waters and to wish it all possible popularity and suc- _0ess. I cannot close this short introduction with- out saying how much my predecessors and I owe to the unfailing zeal, industry and good will of the author, who has always been re- @arded by us all as a real friend. (8igned) “ESME HOWARD.” A SCANDINAVIAN SUMMER. By Harry A. Franck, author of “A Vagabond Journey Around the World,” etc. Illustrated. New York: The Century Co. KING of Vagabondia, it seems to me, and = no longer a mere “Prince of Vagabonds,” b8 the Harry Pranck fans affectionately eall this nomad of the world. If some day you come upon a tramp crying By the roadside—a glorified hobo, so to speak =that lamenting vagrant is likely to be this Wory Franck fellow—Alexander to the life— weeping for new trails to suit his uneasy out- faring feet. It's about all up with Harry Pranck, vagabond. No place left to go. We are in luck, however. Booked for ome Summer more, at any rate, and in the best of all Summer quarters, clear up North. No $ropics, no sub-tropics, nor jungies, nor pestif- “érous small life to eat one up alive. Up to the dlean North instead. Denmark, Norway, Sweden and roundabout to include the whole of that oompany of lands and islands called Scan- d@imavia. You know the travel ways of this perticular rover. At least I assume that every ome knows these. And here the same ways prevail. This, you recall, is not a romantic mman, nor an adventurer—not in any spectac- uller sense. Rather an incorrigibly curious per- gom sbout the common ways of common folks Shroughout the world. No sooner does he reach his goal of travel for the time being than he is in the fields or shops or wherever $he mass of the people of that place are as- sembled in the particular pursuits that make country before him just what it is in con- to every other country. Nothing too m:or his minute study provided it be in- 1, provided it be typical of this place sad of no other one. For instance, that Den- mark is a bicycle land is significant and worth staying by for a while. There’s a reason. And im opening up this reason, or another of weight amd import, the country itself is delivered in fts essentials over to the reader. Customs that We smilingly name “quaint,” or something else 8qually asinine, turn out to be pivotal turns fm the naticnal life, historic trails of national $owth or change. Art—as literature, music, #rchitecture, painting—comes in for seasoned and sane appraisals, but the bulk of ‘time and eompanionship is devoted to the levels where Forty Years in a School of Diplomacy—A Summer in the North Countries—HW ide Variety of Fiction. the majority is to be found making its own sp2cial go at being alive. Here is history at its best—iive history tackled at the present moment and from this traced back briskly and vigorously to the source of the present achievement. And always here are the people themselves—appearing like this, behaving like that, striving for one thing or another. Then there comes the reason, rooted in climate and soil and racial strain. Harry Pranck seizes the heart of the immemorial struggle of man and the nature around him for an answer to the particular problem of one and another of these swarming tribes of the earth. Thirty years ago Harry Pranck, out of the University of Michigan, began his nomadic career. So he is now a familiar to travelers who go chiefly by way of bcoks. He is trustworthy. Readers have learned that. They want that sort. Fiction is all right, but not for this kind of man and writer. So, for his qualities and his powers, we not only accept Harry Franck and his work; we embrace him for it, as well. MY BEST STORY: An Anthology of Storles. Chosen by their own authors. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co. A MOST ingenious and original pian. Here are 21 stories by as many well known writers. That is not the point of real interest. Instead, this lies in the fact that each author selected the story which, according to him, was most representative of his work as a whole. So, in prccession, here are Wells and Wylie and Walpole, "Bennett and Chesterton, Sir Philip Gibbs and Sheila Kaye-Smith, Oppenheim and Beresford Maugham and Prankau, and others up to the number 21. Good reading? The very best in the way of short-story writ- ing. However, it is the immediate effect of the book, as a whole, upon the reader that is sure to be a high point in the enterprise. “I doubt is this is Michael Arlen’'s best story. Cer- tainly it is a strong and beautiful and waywise invention, such as Arlen is able to produce, but is it the finest?” $o the reader’s mind runs in respect to each of these. And along with this self-imposed critical attitude, of which the reader is very proud, goes an involuntary re- viewing of these various authors to see if, just possibly, they have not made mistakes in these choosings. If they have not—which finally must be con- ceded—then, what a light each choice throws upon the author himself, herself. That is, really, a fine feature of the plan—the self- revelation of the author. However, above and beyond these personal appraisals, stands the fact that here to the reader’s hand is a sur- passing book of short stories. MATA HARI: Courtesan and Spy. By Maj. Thomas Coulson, O. B. E. New York: Harper & Brothers. A’r bottom this book is an expert study of the intricate espionage system of three countries as this was pursued by them, re- spectively, during the World War. Its author, Maj. Coulson, first a fighting man, was then an active member of the British intelligence service, counting intimate acquaintance with mainy spies. The most famous of these among women was Mata Hari, whose courage in meet- ing death as a spy drew a commendation that no other part of her life was calculated to arouse. A strange woman of vagarious dream- ings about herself and her destiny. A Dutch girl who, nevertheless, deliberately invented her own legend of Hindu origin, “When I was a child on the banks of the Ganges,” or “As a young girl, a chosen one, mounting the steps of the great temple—" so Mata Hari would croon in her rich voice to the hypnotizing of her hearers into a belief of these imaginings, or, certainly, into a recognition of the spell of this keenly intelligent reader of the average weak- ness of mere man. In the service of Germany Mata Harl was both shrewd and indefatigabie. Her adventures had to do with armies, with countries. This woman worked on the grand scale, having been officially credited with the death of 50,000 soldiers. The story reads like 2 tale of magic. Yet it is history, war history, wherein at points and upon occasion officials of high rank, both military and civil, forgot and became men in the thrall of beauty and charm. Every war in history has had its spy system. That is part of the regulation war procedure. The most of these, even far back in the past, have had woman spies. It is not hard to be- lieve that the most rigorous combing of mili- tary history in this respect would reveal a more dangerous, or a more devastating instrument of secret activities, than did this same Mata Hari, the most modern of spies. In a sense this book is a study of the war. Many points not usually brought into the familiar outlook upon inter- national strife come out here along the way of tracing the tempestuous and dangerous career of this “courtesan and spy.” HOOPER DOOPER. By PFitzhugh Buckner, Newark, N. J.: Barse & Co. “DEAR MRS. MYERS,” said Mr. Ul- man: “Because this book is at once spirited and speedy; fresh and free; witty and wise;” then the alliterative twins giving ont on him, the writer himself flumps to the convinc- ing business level of “bocause it is a darn good story, well told,” we are sending it on, or final words to this effect. He is right. It is a “darn good story.” It is witty. It is fast on its feet and in its mind. Just a cross-country breeze by a pair of young men, not unlike several million of their kind bred by the great days of the present. Modern as this morning. Given a bit to showing off, but decent indeed, despite certain flourishes by way of being reglar fellers. Out West things happen, as they are likely to do—melodramatic things, like looking for a lost or mislaid mother, like coming upon an oddity of & man who was searching for his daughter. Easy, you see, to organize, roughly, a rescue squad. And out of this rose more twists and turns to ad- venture than can easily be surmised. But the writer is an ingenious fellow, ready in mind turns, prompt in word action and with an amazing sense of the little dramas that stand beside every roadway merely waiting for some one to see them and lift them into the open. of these young adventurers, burning up the spaces in his roadster as it were, is clearly ., beside being many other things useful tion makers. That poet is, without any tion whatever. the author himself. And he going to write more novels. Quite likely he already on his way to this. He should be. ONE OF US 18 A MURDERER. By Alan Le May, author of “Pelican Coast,” etc. Garden City: Published for *“The Crime Club, Inc.” by Doubleday, Doran & Co. ONLY eight of them white folks, all trapped in the tropics in a hand-breadth of jungle clearing. Two women. So but six left from whom to pick the one who did murder down there, not once but twice. Out of the heat and the lonely jungle, out of the bodily discomfort and the responding clack of nerves, out of the long waliting for that coasting relief launch— out of all this Alan Le May works a pretty terrible brew of human passions that, clear past any sort of sanity, turns these sufferers into essential maniacs. The story is, in effect, & medical clinic of psychological reactions. One by one these people fall under the physical and mental torments of mere location, each reacting toward the situation according to his own nature when its ordinary controls are gone. A gruesome thing, invented by a writer whose imagination under good direction works out an almost scientific accounting of the white man's breakage under the enormous strain of tropical heat, of the loneliness of tropical surroundings, of its demoralizing strangeness. As a tale this is all gloom and horror and defeat. As an in- vention it is plausible to the edge of being pro- fessional in its foundations and deductions. The book is the Crime Club’s choice for July. Therefore here is” your chance for a properly sponsored hour of mystery terrifying enough to suit the most exacting of thrill seekers. Books Received NANCY'S LONE GIRL SCOUTS. By Jean Henry Large. Foreword by Mrs. William H. Hoffman, president, Girl Scouts. New York: Appleton. TEN NIGHTS WITHOUT A BARROOM. By T. S. Arthur, Jr. Indianapolis: Bell Pub-. lishing Co. MOLLY MOONSHINE. By Gertrude Knevels, New York: Appleton. THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW; Divorce and Readjustment. By Willard Waller, Ph. D, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Nebraska. New York: Live- right. TREASURE TROVE OF PIRATE STORIES; A Collection of Best Pirate Stories for Young People. Compiled and Edited by Ramon Wilke Kessler. Illustrated by A. O. Scott. New York: Appleton. THE PICTURE BOOK OF SHIPS. Told by Peter Gimmage. Pictured by Helen Craig. New York: Macmillan. WINGS AROUND THE WORLD. By F. K. Baron von Koenig-Warthausen. Illustrated. New York: Putnam'’s. S MY THIRTY YEARS' WAR; An Autobiogra- phy. By Margaret Anderson. New York: Covici, Friede. APPLE PIE HILL. By Helen Forbes. Illus- trations by Eleanore Barte. New York: Macmillan. THE GIFT OF GENIUS. By Beverley Ran- dolph Tucker. Boston: Stratford. ADOLESCENCE; Studies in Mental Hygiene. By Prankwood E. Willlams, M. D. New York: Farrar & Rinehart. Felix Mahony’s National Art School Color, Interior Decoration, Costume Design, Commercial Art, Posters 1747 R. 1. Ave. North 1114 AIR CONQUEST. By W. Jefferson Davis, au- thor of “The World's Wings,” etc. Los Angeles: Parker, Stone & Baird, THE BOY WITH THE PARROT; A Story of Gustemala. By Elizabeth Coatsworth. Pic- tures by Wiifrid S. Bronson. New York: Maamnillan. GRAPEVINE. By Jondthan Starr. New York: Liveright, GIRLS' FRIENDSHIP BOOK. By A. Gert- rude Jacobs, B 8. Boston: Christopher. ONE WOMAN'S WAR. Anonymous, New YORK: Macaulay. KALEIDOSCOPICS OF OTHER PREOPLES AND PLACES. By Edward Chambers Betts, LL. B. Boston: Christopher. A PRISONER IN BABYLON. By Madeleine D. Strain. New York: Macaulay. THE WELL-MEANING YOUNG MAN. By Luise and Magdalen King-Hall. New York: Appleton. LOVE PROOF. By Robert Terry Shannon. New York: Clode. EX-BABY. By One Who Has Been Through It All. New York: Covici, Friede. t1ld-Fowl Sanctuaries. 'O great sanctuaries for the wild fowl of of the Nation soon will be acquired by the United States, under the terms of the migra- tory bird conservation act, which appropriated $8,000,000 to be spent over a period of 10 years; in the purchase of refuges for the birds. ‘The two tracts soon to be taken over are located, one in Charleston County, South Car- olina, consisting of 32.555 acres, and one in Alamosa County, Colorado, which embraces 5,180 acres. Both areas are declared by biological ex- perts to be ideal both from food and shelter points of view. ) 4 . & L4 Al Frozen-PuackBerriesinTrade. HE frogen-pack method of canning straw- berries. raspberries, loganberries and sour cherries has developed so well in experimental work that agricultural officials foresee the in- dustry placed on a commercial basis whereby the consumer may purchase the fruit in the small sized cans that fit the needs of the family. Prozen-pack canning in 50-gallon barrels has been carried on successfully, the original flavor and color of the fruit being preserved better by this method than by the sterilization method employing heat. READ INDIA’S SIDE! THE SIMON REPORT ANSWERED! At last the world is given the Simon Commission’s Report on India. Tt presents officially Great Britain's side of the Indian situation. What is to be said om the other side? The Report is answered, answered thoroughly — every important point it makes in support of Great Britain's continued domination of In- dia is fully considered and replied to in the light of overwhelming facts. INDIA IN BONDAGE by Dr. J. T. Sunderland This book is strongly en- dorsed by Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, C. F. Andrews, Mrs. Annie Besant, the Presidents of the Indian National Congress, and prac- tically all India, as true, just ond fair. “A MONUMENTAL WORK . .. Its publication at this critical period in Indian affairs is fortunate,” says The New York Tolesram. To understand what is now going on in India, every well- informed person must read INDIA IN BONDAGE— The Book of the Hour! Send for it now—order on coupon below Te Your Bookseller. or LEWIS COPELAND COMPANY 119 West 33th St, New York, N, Y. Send me at once ... . coples of “INDIA IN BONDAGE.” by Dr. J. T. Sunderland, pages. illusirated, handsomely bound, at $4.00 per copy. postage prepaid. ] Check enclosed. [] Send C. 0. B,