fo the Editor of the "Nowti-Cuiwa Datuy Nuws."
Sin,—Your reviewer of the above book by Charles Sarolen has noth ing but praise. But although the. book is very admirable and gives good sketch of modern Russian aments yet it has blemishes, With your permission I should like to point out these blemishes not through any desire to find fault but merely in the interests of truth. Last year T spent some time in Russia and afterwards read this book and therefore I at once noticed several statements which cannot be accepted as correct.
On page 8 for instance, it is stated "Poverty is universal dismal. The enormous majority of the people are in rags. In the overcrowded tramcars you wil hardly meet a man in a decent suit of clothes." This of course is not correct. When I was in Moscow. last year I noticed particularly that! the people were well clad and {is that there was an absence of po-very. The tramcars are overcrowded but the people are well dressed.
Again on the same page it is stated: "Returning from the the-atte at midnight you will find the streets lined with thousands -of little children and old women sell. ing bootlaces, cigarettes, bread and apples." Well, I visited the the-artes in Moscow almost every night during the fortnight 1 was there, and certainly never saw children or women selling articles s described. The thing 1. did notice was the deserted state of the streets at night, and_ the great absence of the signs of prostituion which one sees in such pro n large towns like Londo Paris ete. The auth e of his to Moscow, and it may be that his impressions are of the year 1917, but they certainly do not apply Moscow of the present day.
On page 11 he"deseribes a visit to a beer-house or "pivna states that he never saw drunkenness in his life. also visited those "pin Moscow last year, and I certainly saw no drunkenness. In fact the Russian beer is so weak that—it would be almost impossible—for anyone to get drunk on such stut. Wines and spirits are too dear for the common people: or proletariat. There is no more drunkenness Moscow than there is in Glasgow. And mind you, this not only applies to Moscow but also to all the other Russian towns that I visited last year. Taking them altogether saw no signs of drunkenness such ax the muther refers to, whole of my visit to Russia I onl; saw one drunken man, and he was lying in the street at Chita early the afternoon.
What T say here is not new because Inst year wrote to a Lon don newspaper pointing out these misstatements and suggesting tha' they should be eliminated—frm future editions, but 1 do not know whether the author has done this or not. It is, however, these blemishes which spoil the book, Tam, ete.
Shanghai, Aug, 8. 1925,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.