lustrated. The Bodley Heed, Lon don, 12/8.
This book is to America what "England their England" is to Eng-tand and comparison must made with full regard "for the difference in national characteristics, What Mr, Macdonell triod achieve by a frontal attack in the form of devastating satire, Me. Walker tries to do by using the subtler sar-cas of plain statement of fact, and he relles contentedly on the perspic city of the reader to point the moral. It says much for the sense of humour the two Anglo-Saxon nations that. they can bear to have their national frailties so nakedly exposed. Thi particular copy is the English edition in which, presumably, the change in the money values into sterling represents the form of translation permitted by the author. Mr, Walker has alvan a series of sketches of different spects of American social life and the title of his book refers to the grand old days in the beginning of the present century when a Mes. William Astor, simply known as Mrs. Astor, dominated New York and New-Port society. The current phrase, "Mrs, Astor's pot horse" was used to indicate ostentatious magnificence, and this book amusingly pillories social, theatrical, political and democratic extravagancesas illustrated in episodes which are so generously described in the American press. There is no reproach in the author's technique, He indicates that the pressure of public opinion 1s gradually endeavouring to discourage some of the more lurid fdlosynerasles of his tale. But gen-rally he adopts a paternal attitude of amused contempt, whether he 1s expounding the amazing experiences Rudolf Valentine, who started a a petty thief and blackmailer and Anished up us an embalmed hero of the women of two continents, or setting down in cold print the unfortunate experiences of the amiable hi Samuel J. Burger, whose system:
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.