... l^^'-w HISTORY will have a place for the home front as well as battle-front chronicler. I can see posterity turning to Mr. James Wedgwood Draw- bell's All Change Here (Hutchinson, 10s. 6d.) to know what we did, thought, and talked about through these anxious days of war, for he is a lively, alert Pepys of journalism, netting the pass ing moment with the whoop of a boy after a butter fly. ...

... : Reviewed by T revor Alle7i AN eighteenth-century eccentric of some note was Dr. Messenger Monsey of Bury St. Edmunds and Chelsea Hospital. His idea of painless dentistry was to tie an aching tooth by catgut to a perforated bullet and fire the bullet from a pistol. His habit in the country was to hide his banknotes in the fireplace under sticks and coal, for safety; and once he returned ...

... The Theatre: By Herbert Farjeon Lights Up! (Savoy) RE-ENTER Mr. Cochran. And about time, too. For-- speaking as a dramatic critic-- London isn't really London without him. And a war-- remembering the revues he put on during the last one-- isn't really a war. Those early Cochran revues were the first over here to combine wit with intimacy-- only when peace came did Mr. Cochran start making ...

... The Theatre By Herbert Farjeon Peril at End House Vaudeville THE ideal solution in a detective play takes you completely by sur prise and makes you feel a fool not to have thought of it; combining, like all the best things in the theatre, the un expected with the inevitable. What, however, usually hap pens in a detective play is that you guess the answer or, being told the answer, don't see ...

... Revudeville DAUNTLESS and indefatigable is the little Windmill Theatre, where the present revue has reached its 143rd year, or 143rd edition-- I forget which, but it is pro- bably the latter. Among the new items is a Paris and the Golden Apple episode, in which the Venus (Miss Margot Harris there is not much of her, and not much on her) is certainly not 143 years old. I am told, indeed, that ...

... Biography and Autobiography Last Viceroy Rear-Admiral the Earl Mountbatten of Burma, by Ray Murphy Jarrolds 21s.). The author, an American, explains how he was tempted to write this biography. The exceptional person ality and governing abilities of the Earl, Mr. Murphy decides, could only have been produced by the British Empire, and in a study of this career he hopes to reveal a form of ...

... The Official Report of the London Olympic Games (World Sports 5 s.). Athletes all over the world will welcome the publication of the British Olympic Association's Official Report of the 1948 Olympic Games. It contains complete re ports of every section of the Games, specialist articles and photographs illustrating each series of events; some of the pictures are coloured. ...

... Herefordshire, by H. L. V. Fletcher (Hale 15 s.). Another volume in the series of county books. Conversational in tone, the book contains much detailed local tradition and history. The author describes Herefordshire as above all a county of villages the black-and-white farmhouses and cottages of these villages and the broad and speedy Wye draining through rich agricultural land are well ...

... Woodpigeon Shooting (Imperial Chemical Industries Game Services Advisory Leaflet 21) This booklet, obtainable from l.C.I. Game Ser vices, Fordingbridge, is in great demand, and a fourth and revised edition has now been issued. It contains much valuable information on hides and where to place them, and the use of decoys. ...

... Murder from Memory (Ambassadors) STRANGE that in a world war, with its universal killing, so many plays should be produced, for alleged entertainment and relaxation, in which killing is the main motive. I am not suggesting that in war time only the lighter stuff should be seen on the stage; that would rule out, for instance, Hamlet and Macbeth. But it is hardly necessary to add that ...

... Queer Horses and Queer People, by C. G. Fitch Hurst and Blackett 16s.). This is one of those chatty autobiographies and contains a wealth of anecdotes about human and equine characters encountered by the author at home and overseas, covering experiences in France in the first World War, in Ireland and New Zealand, and while hunting, racing and playing polo. ...

... The Golden Year, by R. M. Lockley (H. F. and G. Witherby 10s. (id.). The author, who in a previous book dealt with co-operative farming, uses his powers of vivid description to write of a year on the farm on the Welsh peninsula which he took on alone after the participants in the co operative effort had split up. Written as a diary, the book contains pen pictures of farm life throughout the ...