Evening star., 1927-10-09

SO effectually as to make
general human welfare q
close, interlocking concern, every part
properly open to common scrutiny.
the whole dependent upon universal
understanding and observance of the
ba sic laws of such well-being. TO in
formed, right-living John Smith and
his family living at one end OF city
block it is vital that James Brown and
his family at the other end of it are
also equally informed and right-living,
else the Brown tribe stands as active
menace to the continued security of
the Smiths. And SO, nowadays, the
other side of the world Is, In effect,
just across the street either, on the
one hand waving the red flag of dam
ger, or on the other floating bright
banners of promise and example.
It is here that we come upon Kath-
crime Mayo. keen to the multiplied
contacts of modern life, awake to the
deep significance of these. Turned, in
the beginning partly by accident. to
a study of the East Indian in his re-
lation to a new world order of recip-
rocal adaptations ana accOmmoda-
tions, this writer converted the situa-
ton into opportunity. And here we
find her travelling over India-north,
south, east, west-through countless
native villages and the starved lands
lying in between. One, reading, is
bound to be caught and held immedi-
ately by the practical business COM
potency of this Investigator. Neither
piety as such, nor pedantry, nor senti-
mentality shows its face In the under
taking. This is not study of race
development, not comparative out.
look upon religion, not an analysis of
the idiOsyncrasies of government. 1t
is simpler, and deeper and more i'm.
portant than merely scholastic con-
sideration could possibly be. Bare
human stuff is the material of the
study. The daily life of these millions
is the pressing point of view. What
do they eat, what houses do they live
in. what care do they give their bod
les, what are their notions of health
and vigor? When sickness comes
what is done for the benefit of the all.
ing, for the security of the family and
neighborfood against infection and
the spread of disease?
These are, in the main, the ques.
tions set by Katherine Mayo and an.
swered out of the common life Of
India itself. This answer is an ap-
palling one. Its amazing parts, col
lected and co-ordinated, presents the
panorama of millions of humans
caught in the backwash of 5000 years
devoted to soul contempla ton, with a
corresponding ignorance and disre-
gard of bodily health and material ad-
vantage. From the surface of this
alarming exposure it looks as if the
tremendous inertia of the situation
might hold India another 5000 years,
or more, to it's own past, to a tacid
rejection of the overtures of healthful
modern life. Read here the record of
child marriage, of early collaborating,
of the broods of sick, deformed, un-
nourished children of India. Go with
Katherine Mayo into the hospitals
set up by the English-where even
the sufferers resist inroads upon the
immemorial ways of India in it's dis
regard of the most elementary facts
of cleanliness, of hygiene and santa
ton. Read the whole revolving story
of ignorance and cruelty, of caste and
class, Of incredible poverty and suffer-
ing. This book is written in the in
terest of no authority - church or
state or organized philanthropy. 1t is
the independent venture OF a highly
intelligent woman of direct purpose
and a purely practical method. With
such qualities to project the adven-
ture in humanity Katherine Mayo
here offers to the world a chapter of
existent life that is calculated to make
the pictures of Dore and Dante look
like pastel pleasantries of Arcadian
landscapes.
BREAD AND FIRE. BY Charles
Rumford Walker. author of Steel
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Co.
A THEME so big, so diversified and
slow moving as to refuse the tidy
sequences and conclusions of any
story. So the author concerns him.
self little with the tidy orderliness of
the novel writer. Instead, like life, or
tate, or Providence, he throws off a
slice OF life that is patternless, as in
d1v1dual existence always is, and
leaves the matter there-as destiny
does, as Providence does.
Very broadly speaking, the field
projected here is that of industry
mottled, as actual industry is today,
with about every ism that the uneasy
mind OF the discontented has been able
to invent. Jumbled together within
the field of work here is the radical,
the rebel, the agitator, the skilled and
the unskilled turning out steel and
copper for the uses of this mechanical
world. To objectify the thought and
purpose of this phase of industrial
life there must be outstanding people.
enc or more. The center of this par.
ticular business is a young man
working, but thinking, too; adventur-
ing in the way of getting a living as
he had little before adventured in
war, looking around to see how the
others are carrying on in the laborious
exactions of the copper business, pick
ing out one here and there and setting
him up, alive, as expressing some
thing worth while. Something of a
poet. now and then, a bit of a lover
just bit of one. not much. All in all
a genuine human set down in the tre.
mendous adventure of being alive in
a terribly active world So the story
goes on, the reader hoping a good eli
max for Harris Burnham, for he has
grown to like this interesting fellow.
But nothing, happens-it doesn't in
life, you know. And this story is
simply a chunk of life, real and at
hand. No, this is not a story with
hidden in it's pockets. Not
a lot of folks will read it. But those
who do will say that here is truth,
vivid and undeniable, and then they
will grow little more uneasy about
this monstrOusly exacting present,
pushing marionettes all over the place.
X x X X
SLEEP. BY Edith Wkar.
ton, author Of ETHAN Frome,"
etc. New York: D Appleton & Co.
A BIT of annoying confusion goes
Z along with the reading of this
novel, touch of the crossword puzzle
in effect. And this has really nothing
to do with the author, whose skill in
the art of the novel is freely accepted.
No; the handicap rests with the mate
rial itself, with the subject matter
under consideration. A comedy of cur
rent social New York, its prime pre-
is, logically, with the fact
and immediate effects of divorce. Din
nars da noes the nlav tha nnera Cer-