noc op Sterenaen—By AR. and Rik. Weekes. Ward, Lock, 3
This is a novel that will appeal to those who like good reading matccutsing the Inner First Police Dis-o'er, especially in these days of great {rlet, our hoary" old. friends "the heat, Tt is not a mystery tale though frowning walls of the. Legation mystery pervades at times and it is Quarter" have been dr¢ the author: Jdifcult, once having started to read {f, to set the book down until one has come to the end. A story out As long as the Diplomatic Quarter remains a separate area under foreign of the ordinary, it is well construct-and full of warmth and enter-Juriadietion, and particularly while its fortined walls, beyond "the gla tainment.
Telain' their" somewhat," menace Etia is the only daughter of John the. position of the "Chinese Daramel and a spendthrift mother. Gieinity Is by no means enviable, Before the outbreak of the Great War, her father creates for Etta 0 And again, the "practice manceusecret trust fund of £40,000. His vres", as he calls the drilling of the brother Hugh is the only other in Japanese Legation Guards out the "know," and the secret isnot glacis, are also produced as example of the difficulties of the Peking {o, be iviulond unt ita reaches age of 23 on Septem police, Unfortunately he omits to twenty-one years later. "One of the explain the connection between these conditions of the trust fund pro-walls and the manoeuvres and the Vides that, in the event of Etta murders, kidnappings, and burglaries death, the money shall revert that take place in Peking and Hugh, who is the trustee. environs with a population of well John joins his old regiment and is over @ million Chinese. killed' in action. Hugh finds himself facing ruin through speculation 'The typical oriental practice of the fand wrongfully using is clients' police collecting their own taxes, in money and his only chance of saving {his case the house-tax, is defended himself ig to get hold of the trust by the author as follows: fund. But September 10 approaches.
"Whether the collection of the house It only the girl would die, the money tax by the. police authorities in would be his, but not otherwise. Peiping. should be critieleed on the The authors give a vivid descrip-asia of principles of public admin" {tration "which are applicable Western ities. is" a question that jopted by Hugh's paramour to make ton of mart usual methods, Involves certain fundamental con Pita meet with a fatal accident and siderations, for it is manifestly how she fails.
Unreasonable to regard Western congood book, well recommended. ceptions regarding. the legal rights of Snaividuals or the principles" of fdminietration as universally Valid {he sense that they must be rigidly government were directly appointed applied ae a criterion of the soundness [by the Nanking Government.
Of certain' Police "operations. in Chinese municipality where' local The chapter on the Bureau of! and political conditions are radically Finance, with its list of a dozen different kinds of taxes, is of interest; ities, aiierent from there In. Western whilst those on the" Bureaux of That, of course, is a two-edged argu-Social Welfare and Public Works mani which cuts both ways. provide an element of comic The shortest chapter, that on "Selt~ Fellef, in view of the neglected Government", provides one of the state of the roads, electric lighting, best fairy-stories in the book. The poor relief, sanitation and so forth author himself admits at the start: In present-day Peking.
The most interesting chapter in the Out of 145 articles in, the organic tage of municipalities, no Jess than 120 fuook is that on the origin of the!
fre devoted to a detailed account of Diplomatic Quarter. Tt "is a pity] and that the author does not tell us why' test the original American suggestion, in 1901, of making Peking a Treaty Port prescribed by the authors of the law. fand' the Diplomatic Quarter an_In-'Yet he goes on to say that this! ternational Settlement, was never: plan should not be ignored, as steps: carried out. have been taken to put the machin-'This book, no doubt, will be ery of self-government in motion, and interest to the student of the theorem Geseribes the elections supposed to tical aspect of government. Whether have taken place in the spring of it should be recommended to students 1993. No elections, none anyhow in aspiring to. an oficial career is our sense of the term, were ever another matter, especially in, China Rela, nor were any election figures Whose people have ever been famous ever published, The mayor and as. devout worshippers of edicts, other chief officials of the municipal Tules and regulation—on paper—wa.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.