By THE City oF tHE Long, Sato—A fois of New clea ty Ais "ale New York. 1926.
Too often have we been affected with romances about China which! have only served first for derisive Iavghter and then for sheer boredom, a8 one wildly impossible situa-on' succeeds another, the authors apparently never having seen China ce met -ariy Chinese and drawing their ideas of China and the Chinese from some common stock of ridiculous absurdities, Serious books of travel in China, ponderous tomes of sinologues, technical works: on Chinese art and the like are known to us all, but rarely do we light on a book which des. cribes the life which foreigners lead in China. A Bland or a Ready fare not met with every day. And now this exclusive group has been joined by Mrs. Alice Tisdale Hobart, Who in "By the City of the Long! Sand" describes from the point of view of a woman the comedy and tragedy of the lives of those Who are moved at a moment's notice by soulless corporations from north to south and east to west. Those who come out to China and settle down for the whole of their career in Shanghai or Hongkong with possible brief excursions to] Hankow or Tientsin can hardly Picture to themselves the feelings] with which men, and more parti-colorly their wives, arrive at a new port, and enter into occupation of another company or official residence furnished with little more' than the bare necessities of furniture chipped and battered by a succession of previous occupants, whose ideas of their responsibility. for easing for the houses and furni-tore Which are only temporarily theirs are as widely different as are their characters, But, as Mrs. Hobart tells, we grow strangely fond of these official residences and of these sticks of official furniture, "searred with the battle of other people's lives," and after 'a year or two part, with them with 4 sadness which would have seemed almost incredible on our arrival, had we not had precisely the same experience before.
Every book should point a moral, and Mrs, Hobart's does not fall short in this essential. It is, we. take it, that the heads of firms: or official services should encourage and make it possible for thei subordinates to marry at an early stage of their career, firstly not making the probationary period of celibacy unduly long and secondly by taking pains to provide these married men and their young brides with comfortable houses comfortably furnished. It is only those who spend 20 or more of the best years of their live the}! smaller treaty ports who know how much their physical, mental and moral well-being are' dependent on. having a comfortable home. In. facilities for! recreation are practically non-existent, and consequently the foreign residents are thrown back on their own. really satisfying homelike the men lead soul-deadening existence which ood neither for themselves nor for And what of the women?—They, too, deserve the greatest considera-_ tion at the hands of their husbands' superiors. It is up to them to make or mar a man's career and by tactful sympathy to bring out a man's very best in hie work. Mrs. Hobart points out that probably no. man understands how close the making of her home lies to a woman and that it is necessary obedience to the instinct which made primitive woman bring together br: for a rude shelter for those be-got. Wives should not be regarded by Head Offices as a nuisance and as a probable drag! on their husbands, but should _rather be welcomed as their husbands' inspiration and a stimulus, and it should be the aim of those responsible to do everything their power that these wives _are given houses and _house-fittings which will bring joy to their hearts and comfort them in_ their many long hours and days of soli-tade. If Mrs, Hobart's book suc-is in bringing about even the' slightest amelioration of the conditions which she describes. with felicitous a touch, it will not have been written in vain, and she will have earned the gratitude'
seores_of her sisters, in thie On the other hand,-we do think that it might-be'o? benefit to the firms themselves, which have branch offices dotted over. the treaty ports, if they were to-make it a practice to give as a wedding-present the newly married bride of each of their employees a copy of Mrs, Hebart's book accompanied by an earnest wish that she should read it carefully and give Mrs, Hobart's views on the duties of wives a {ait trial before deciding to hate China and tle Chinese and life fa China and thereby possibly wrecking their husbands' business career and almost certainly destroying their own matrimonial hap.-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.