(_By Mr. Punch's Staff of Learned Clerks._)
I suppose that never in the history of this nation did we harbour quite
so many military experts. From the Service Clubs to the street corner
their voice goes up daily in unceasing hortation. Therefore the moment
seems specially apt for me to call your attention to a volume by a
military man who really was expert, in other words to a new edition of
PASLEY'S _Military Policy of the British Empire_ (CLOWES), brought up to
date by Colonel B. E. WARD, R.E. I blush to think of the number of
civilian readers to whom the name of PASLEY conveys nothing. I blush
still more to reflect that I have myself only just ceased to belong to
them. But, quite honestly, if you are at all concerned with the science
and policy of arms (as who nowadays is not?), you will find this book of
extreme interest. A few chance quotations will be enough to prove that
the gallant Captain was a man who knew what he was writing about. In the
year 1810, for example, he could look ahead far enough to say, "Germany
may become so powerful as to act the same part in Europe which France
now does." It is perhaps on the ethical side of war that he is most
impressive. Fair play, we all know, is a jewel; but many of us may have
secreted an uneasy suspicion that the side that practises it suffers
from a certain handicap. All those unpleasant persons whose names have
become so uncomfortably familiar lately--CLAUSEWITZ, BERNHARDI, and
their professional crew--have so vociferously preached the gospel of
Might as Right, that it is refreshing to read here such maxims as "It is
an advantage in war to show moderation and justice," and "A scrupulous
adherence to the law of nations is the only sound policy." This is the
sort of sermon--from an authoritative source--that we do well to lay to
heart just now; while still retaining a fixed determination to exact for
future assurance the uttermost penalty from an enemy that has broken
every law of God and man.
* * * * *
In ordinary life it would be a distinct advantage for a man to become
possessed of a spell which rendered him immune from death, pain or
restraint, enabled him to pass through walls and floors and generally
freed him from all those little restrictions which make life the
tiresome and precarious thing it is. A man so constituted would conduct
himself after the manner of his fellows from day to day and would resort
to the use of his peculiar powers only when the necessity arose. But the
hero of fiction has his duty always to perform, and he may well find
that such transcendental gifts are apt to become a burden. He must for
ever be turning them to account and finding new material to work upon.
That the scope is limited anyone will at once discover who reads _The
Great Miracle_ (STANLEY PAUL). He may never do the same thing twice;
once he has disappeared through a floor at a critical moment, floors are
off. Each feat must be more astounding than the last: when he has worked
his way through a prison wall it would be an anticlimax to do a job with
the wall of a mere dwelling-house, and, of course, he is absolutely
precluded from the common use of doors. I am afraid Mr. T. P. VANEWORD'S
primary conception has been too much for him: he lacks the nice
imagination of a WELLS to carry it off. Also he fails to deal with the
humour of the position, whether in the madhouse, the court of justice,
the manager's office or the palace, an elementary mistake which the most
amateur conjurer will always avoid. It is rather the author's misfortune
than his fault that his incidental picture of war, introduced only as a
new field of operation for his prodigy, is rendered almost fatuous by
the actual conditions at present existing.
* * * * *
Illustration: _Porter._ "DO I KNOW IF THE ROOSHUNS HAS REALLY COME
THROUGH ENGLAND? WELL, SIR, IF THIS DON'T PROVE IT, I DON'T KNOW WHAT
DO. A TRAIN WENT THROUGH HERE FULL, AND WHEN IT COME BACK I KNOWED
THERE'D BIN ROOSHUNS IN IT, 'CAUSE THE CUSHIONS AND FLOORS WAS COVERED
WITH SNOW."
* * * * *
When the father of _Patience Tabernacle_ (MILLS AND BOON) suddenly left
his books at the bank in a state of regrettable inaccuracy and went off
to borrow the wig and other equipment of his elderly maiden sister I
thought I was to have one of those jolly, naive detective stories which
the feminine hand can best weave. But I was deceived, nor do I consider
quite fairly. For how was I to know that such an incident had no
essential relation to any other in this quiet story of the love affairs
of _Patience_ and the wrong boy rejected, and the right man discovered,
in time; that it wasn't even introduced so as to throw light on the
character of any one concerned? Now I would ask Miss SOPHIE COLES what
she would think of me if I began my (projected) Sussex village epic with
the blowing up of the local public-house by anarchists and contented
myself with merely casual references to the matter, never really making
it part of any design or letting it modify any of my characters? And
wouldn't it aggravate, not lessen, my artistic crime if I made the
anarchists related to my heroine? Of course it would. Very well, then.
And I am afraid our author can't claim the privileges of a lawless
realism, for she distinctly doesn't belong to the photographic school.
* * * * *