(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
_The Romance of Madame Tussaud's_ (ODHAMS) strikes one, in these days of
universal reminiscence, almost as a _libre à faire_, certainly as a volume
that finds its welcome waiting for it. I suppose there are few unhappy
beings for whom the very name of that gifted lady does not revive something
of the nursery magic that is never quite forgotten. All of which means that
Mr. JOHN T. TUSSAUD, who has written, vivaciously and with obvious
pleasure, this history of the famous show, is (I hope) assured beforehand
of his sales. It is a fat record, taking the story from the earliest wax
profiles made by Dr. CURTIUS for the Parisian aristocracy in the days
before the Revolution; through the Terror, when his niece (afterwards
Madame TUSSAUD) was employed to model notable heads from the basket of the
guillotine, which was itself subsequently to figure amongst the attractions
of her collection, and finally bringing the enterprising artist and her
models to England and Baker Street, whence a comparatively recent move
established them (the foundress in effigy only) in their present palace. I
was especially interested to trace the evidence of close attention paid to
the show by Mr. Punch, and in particular to learn that the title Chamber of
Horrors was first invented by that observer; though the author falls into
an obvious chronological inexactitude in ascribing to these pages a cartoon
by CRUIKSHANK published "in November of Waterloo year." I have no space for
the many queer stories, chiefly of encounters between the quick and the
wax, with which the book abounds, nor for more than mention of its
admirable photographs, of which I should have liked many more. Altogether
it gives an unusual sidelight on the history of two Capitals; and
incidentally, if the reading of it puts others in the same resolve as
myself, an extra turn-stile will be needed in the Marylebone Road.
* * * * *
Mr. HARRY TIGHE is something of a problem to me. With the best will in the
world to appreciate what looked like unusual promise I can only regard him
at present as one who is neglecting the good gifts of heaven in the pursuit
apparently of some Jack-o'-lanthorn idea of popularity. No doubt you recall
his first novel, _The Sheep Path_, a sincere and well-observed study of
feminine temperament. This was followed by one that (though it had its
friends) marked, to my thinking, a lamentable fall from grace. He has now
published a third, _Day Dawn_ (WESTALL). Here, though popularity of a kind
may be its reward, the work is still woefully beneath what should be Mr.
TIGHE'S level. Certainly not one of the demands of the circulating
libraries is unfulfilled. We have a fair-haired heroine (victim to
cocaine), a dark and villainous foreigner, a dashing hero, a middle-aged
woman who adores him despite the presence of her husband, himself called
throughout _Baron Brinthall_, a style surely more common in pantomimic
circles than in the drawing-rooms of Mayfair; and the incidents embrace
both murder and suicide. Moreover there is "plenty of conversation," and
the intrigue moves sufficiently quickly (if jerkily) to keep one curious
about the next page. But having very willingly admitted so much I return to
my contention, that for Mr. TIGHE to neglect his sensitive and delicate art
for the antics of these tawdry dolls is to betray both himself and the
craft of which he may still become a distinguished exponent.
* * * * *
From the official who is interested in officialdom to the Infantry officer
who is interested in tactics, from the mechanical expert who can appreciate
the technical details of diagrams to the child who revels in faultless
photographs of hair-raising monsters ("I may read it, mother, mayn't I,
when I've unstickied my fingers?" was the way I heard it put), everybody, I
think, will find plenty to attract him in Sir ALBERT STERN'S finely
illustrated _Tanks 1914-1918_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON). Tanks were born at
Lincoln, and rightly so, for did not OLIVER CROMWELL'S Ironsides mostly
come from this region?--and the main theme of this book is to show how much
more formidable an obstacle they found in the files and registries of
Whitehall than in the trenches and wire-entanglements of Flanders and
France. Parents they had and sponsors innumerable. Practical soldiers and
engineers were enthusiastic about them, and the Bosch quaked in his
trenches or ran; but even so late as the autumn of 1917, after General FOCH
(as he was then) had said, "You must make quantities and quantities; we
must fight mechanically," one stout little company of obscurantists bravely
defied the creed of Juggernaut until the irresistible logic of its
successes in the field crushed them remorselessly under the "creeping
grip." And that company, of course, according to Sir ALBERT STERN, was the
British War Office.
* * * * *
Let me commend to you _The Mask_ (METHUEN) as a craftsmanlike essay in
imaginative realism; ruthlessly candid and self-revealing, but free from
that tiresome obsession of the ultra-realists that everything that has ever
happened is equally important in retrospect. The narrator, _Vanya
Gombarov_, a Russian Jew, discourses reflectively and detachedly, as it
were from behind a mask, to an English artist friend about his early
childhood in his own land and the dismal adventures of the _Gombarov_
family in that underworld of exploited and miserable aliens which is one of
the root social problems of America. Very poignantly Mr. JOHN COURNOS makes
you understand the import of the phrase so constantly on the lips of such
victims of their own credulous hopes of El Dorado--"Woe to COLUMBUS!" The
portrait of _Vanya's_ stepfather, brilliant, magnanimous, pursued by an
Æschylean malignity of destiny, fills much of the foreground and is a quite
masterly piece of work. One cannot be wrong in assuming this to be
essential autobiography; there is a passionate conviction as of things
intimately seen and dreadfully suffered. Such material might well have
tempted to a mere piling of squalor upon squalor. A fine discretion has
given a noble dignity to a record through which shines the unquenchable
human spirit. One passage, full of affectionate discernment about London,
will cause a flicker of just pride in everyone who is authentic Cockney,
whether by birth or adoption. A big book of its kind, I dare assert.
* * * * *
_Star of India_ (CASSELL) is what Mrs. ALICE PERRIN calls her latest novel,
a title so good that I can only wonder why (or perhaps whether) it has not
been used before. Inside also I found excellent entertainment. One supposes
the author to have been confronted with two main problems with regard to
her plot--how to make sufficiently plausible the marriage between a flapper
(if you will forgive the odious word) of seventeen and a middle-ageing
Anglo-Indian; and, secondly, how to impart any touch of novelty to the
inevitable catastrophe that must attend this union. The first she has
managed by a very cunning suggestion of the mingled jealousy, curiosity and
boredom that drove _Stella_ into the arms of her elderly suitor; the second
by a variety of devices, to indicate which would be to give away the whole
intrigue--one, I may say, whose climax is not nearly so visible from afar
as that of most triangle tales. One point only I will reveal: Mrs. PERRIN
has had the courage, while vindicating her own common-sense judgment upon
such folk, to introduce a second girl, daughter and pupil of one of the
spoon-fed idealists who would govern India with the platitudes of
ignorance, and not only to make her sympathetic, but to convince me of her
attractions, which (especially just now) was not easy work. Decidedly a
first-rate yarn.
* * * * *
We may, I think, take it that the love-story in _The Gunroom_ (BLACK) is
fiction pure and naively simple, but that the experiences of _John
Lynwood_, the hero, in the Navy are given as the actual experiences of Mr.
C.L. MORGAN, the author. Let me then at once say that his revelations of
the bullying of junior by senior midshipmen go back to a period before the
War. These "shakings," we are asked to believe, were due partly to custom
and partly to boredom caused by lack of leave. If Mr. MORGAN is correct
both in his facts and surmises it is satisfactory to think that the War
must have obliterated the boredom which provoked such excesses, and one
need not be a fanatical opponent of physical punishment to hope that such
forms of tyranny will never again be tolerated as a matter of custom. I am
obliged to conclude that these incidents in _Lynwood's_ career are
absolutely true, for certainly nothing less than absolute truth could
excuse their appearance in print; but at the same time I must confess that
any attack upon our Navy is apt with me to act as an irritant. The more
reason that I should honestly admit Mr. MORGAN'S merits and say that he
writes with a nice sense of style, and that his book does not derive its
only interest from its revelations.
* * * * *
[Illustration: OUR LAUNDRIES: THE COLLAR-FINISHER.]
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