FATAL Suapows—By Margaret Peterson, Hutchinson, London, 7/6 lo concerns two neurotic and jealous women, who live in a rose-embowered cottage with a. long-haired artist, the husband of older woman, Add to thi situation secret stairways and passage:
ind the tale of a ghost sup-to haunt the place where he committed a murder, and you all the elements of story, Anew: setting is the tragedy of the tal the eight flounce off ike puppets at a' pantomime, without Tending reality to the story. Me deed, it seems to us that the can say for it, The method of the narrative also a hackneyed one. The story given in the words of journals Kept by four different. persons. Phe journal-habit may have been prevalent some years ago, bat to expect a callow youth, "a bus Soctor, a nervous, high-strung girl, and a) more or_ioss matter-of-fact nurse to write down so many facts and impressions during. several strenuous days in this modern age Seems to us) far-fetched. Te only] adds to the general effect of the book as being unreal and not satisfying ta. the. aesthetic demands of Sppeas toe characterise of any resp ra Dower, and in not eeuliar to. the Chinese rulers "at tanking. "The may conceivably be ther Sind make them more est. attach beeners against Central Northern China, This summing up of the situation can hardly be refuted, although perhaps it does not sufficiently recognise the obstinacy of the prolems confronting the present government. Mr. MacNair can hardly blamed for that, because recent events have. so greatly accelerated the progress of the anti-government movements. Still, his evident belief that Nanking will come out of the ordeal satisfactorily has not yet been disproved—e.m,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.