Evening star., 1937-05-15

mas done Tor betterlng working and
living conditions among all kinds of
workers.
In substance, he reports that the
Russians, under their new government,
have planned we'll and executed badly.
He finds that their aspirations for
the workers are excellent, but that
most of them remain, even today,
in the state of being aspirations, and
that those which have been carried
out have, quite often, been bungled.
Particularly In illustration of this he
refers to the so-called model tene-
ments built for working class families.
They are constructed from cheap
materials, he says, 50 that even those
which have been up only a few years
are in state of marked deterioration.
More than this, he finds that these
buildings are badly planned for family
living and hardly maintained at all.
There are, of course, some exceptions.
He notes and names these duly.
He also found in working conditions
that the promises of the workers
state have not yet been fulfilled. The
work day is long, the speed-up system
is carried out in the government
factories to degree that shocked
him, there is deliberately fostered
system of spying among the workers,
and wages are so low that only the
fact that mothers as well as fathers
contribute to family support makes it
possible for the ordinary working class
to keep alive. The top weekly wages
which he found, indeed, for a factory
worker, was only 27 shillings AS
against these facts, however, there
are plans and ideals which he found
admirable. He could only express
his hope that time would bring them
to fulfillment At present, he agrees
with most authorities that the people
are better off than they were under
the Gar, but worse off than the work.
ers in any other Western country.
The book is almost devoid of gen.
eralities. 1t is written in diary form
and simply relates how the author
visited this or that factory. creche,
tenement, park and SO on, and lists
the conditions found in each.
At the end of the journal, however,
Sir Walter permits himself to comment
little He clearly would like to be
enthusiastic but he has the English
democrats love of freedom too deeply
ingrained in him. He cannot stomach
the suppression of criticism, the spy
ing, the great inequality, the demand
for utter conformity. He hopes, how
ever, that these evils are only phase.
His criticism is at all times generous,
and the most sensitive Communist
ought not to find fault with the pure
objectivity of his book
ANGELS IN UNDRESS. BY Mark
Benney. New York: Random
House
ONCE in while one does really get
a book which falls outside recog-
nizable types. The present one does
that. 1t is, to be sure, an autObi-
ography. but it is an autobiography
with a difference Its writer is prose
artist and poet who knows how to
use prose as his medium. His life
story therefore shines with a light.
But as it is a terrible story, quite
apart from any manner Of telling, that
light becomes beacon of terror,
flashing, throwing shad-
oWs which are sinister and repellent.
It is the story, in brief, of the life of
an English lad whose mother was
urhoSa homo tho
derWorld of London, whose mentors
were criminals, whose ambition it
was to become wide" man, by
which he understood one whose wits
were superior to work, and whose fate
was finally prison. 1t is all this and
it is piece of splendid writing. The
question has already been raised as to
how a man with so little education
could write as this Mark Benney writes.
1t has not been answered satisfac-
torily, in the reviewers opinion, but
the authenticity Of the volume has
been abundantly vouched for. 1t is
no literary hoax. On the contrary, it
would seem to be literary miracle
The book offers no apologies. It
tells Of the only life which the child
Mark Benney knew. He had no stand
ards of comparison in his boyhood;
therefore he makes no subsequent ex-
cuses. He had normal boys love
of adventure, he admired his pretty,
gay young mother and found the few
erish existence that surrounded her
M moro chooripp fhop opv child Rpde
the home Of its parents. He grew
naturally into crime; it was not want
that drove him, although he did have
some lean days. Instead, he even de-
scribes stealing for the love Of it.
His book, therefore, is without the
self-pity which chara cterizes so many
crime confessionals; yet neither is it
1t is record of sordid
existence, as seen by one who had
no knowledge of sordidness, by one
who found beauty in his surroundings
even as do the rest Of us. Coming,
later in life, to understand that the
basic material of those surroundings
was hideous, he has had the rare dis
elimination to write book of hideous
beauty, of repellent fascination, book
that is like serpent with cleaning
skin-a book such as only a very
rare talent could have produced.
It is not recommended, however, for
general reading. The lover of inspired
writing will give it its proper value.
Other readers, it is to be feared, will
find it either unwholesomely sensa-
tional or unbearably shocking.
PIONEERING IN AGRICULTURE.
BY Thomas Clark Atkeson and
Mary Meek Atkeson. New York:
Orange Judd Publishing CO.
THIS simply written work by WASH
ington authors is one which ought
to be read with great interest today.
Agricultural problems are not the least
Of the current news, and farmers and
their spectacular plight are to some de-
gree holding the political stage. We
think of their present Ill condition as
something altogether new. We read
of their disasters in the drought and