Evening star., 1937-07-17
By Mary.Carfer Roberts

YANGTzE SKIPPER, BY Thoma,
woodrooffe. New York: Sheridan
"A 20 GREAT or famous writer
has produced a book for re-
VI viewers to exercise upon this
4 \ week, no fledgling genius has
turned out a novel of brilliant So
eial insight and profound psyche
logical understanding and it seems
somehow to be an of time in the
publishing business. One wonders
what that school OF criticism which
goes in for weekly "discoveries" zone s
private name for it being the chest
humping schooD will make OF the
gap For ones self one has discovered
highly pleasant little book, not, as
aforesaid, claims to literary notoriety
but eminently readable and amusing
And what do you want when the
weather is the way it has been
anyhow?
The book is "Yangtze Skipper" the
story OF the adventures OF a young
man named Toby on the great and
storied yellow River Of China. Toby
n an EngliShman who belongs to "the
generation which knew no male who
was OF military age and not a cripple
who had not seen France or the war
IN some shape or form, at sea or
abroad" He had seen it himself
At the age OF II as a midshipman in
the Kings navy. After the war he
STAYED in and became an officer, and
one flnds him in this book on his first
commission, first officer on a gun
boat, the Beetle, patrolling the
Sangtze.
The story is told in the third per-
aon but, publishers assure us, is au-
Typographical from beginning to end.
It Is richly amusing, without any
failure in realism. Toby saw re-
eealing slice of that chicanery known
as revolution in China, he met white
and native society, was called on to
disperse a mob of several thousand
coolies with force Of eight sailors
saved the white population OF city
from a war lords invasion tthe
comic sequel to his heroism being that
he found his ship loaded with IA kinds
of missionaries, all of whom insisted
IN holding religious services for the
crew., was entertained in the home
of war lord" himself, had flirta-
tons, witnessed executions and gen.
orally found life on the Yangtze an
exciting business. After more than a
year OF it he was ordered home to go
to school, and there he ends his story
1t Is written amusingly, so that for
once publishers announcement
seems TO f1t-Sheridan House calls
this narrative of the lighter side
Of British imperialism" Toby, who
had cut his teeth on danger as a
humble midshipman In the World
War, found about equal delight ap-
parently in his new dignity as an
ofYicer and the milder excitement Of
fered by the uncertainties Of Chinese
politics. One of the typical cpl
sodes Of his story is the arrest OF
the opium smuggler who was re-
ported by the British customs as a
dangerous customer: he had already
ahot at one official. Toby crept ST.
kntlv aboard the suspected craft In
the dead OF the night. placed his tiny
party OF sailors strategically and sin
sle-handed rushed the captains cabin
He found the supposed criminal sit
ting happily at his table with a
lightly clad Russian lady on each
knee. The ladies screamed consid-
erablv, but beyond that there were no
hoetilitie3 and the whole matter end
ed Satisfactorily for both sides.
For hot-veather reading you can
hardly do better than this book, which
Will not cloy as Summer fiction" is
~ likely to do nor yet give you a
headache with its seriousness. The
author, incidentally, remained in the
navy until 1888 when he retired with
the rank of lieutenant commander.
He is now with the British Broadcast
Ing o., 1t being his voice which de-
scribed the Berlin Olympcs and the
coronation over that network.
SPAIN: A TRAGIC JOURNEY. BY
r. Theo Rogers With a foreword
by Sir Willmott Lewis and a pref
ace by Col Theodore Roosevelt
New York: The Macaulay Co.
THIS Is book about the current
civil war in Spain. It's author is
an American whose background, as
r~lates to Spanish matters, is unique
Mr.. Rogers enlisted for service in our
Army in the panish-American War
while he was yet under military age.
he went out to the Philippines dur
Ing the conflict and has remained In
the islands since doing noteworthy
work in smoothing relations between
the whites and the natives, for which
latter group he acquired q strong
evmpathy His admiration for Span
ish culture as he saw it in the islands
led him to spend his vacation in Spain,
and he has followed this practice for
. number OF years. He speaks Span
i*h 1uently and has made a loving
study OF Spanish history and tradi-
ton. These facts are attested to in
the foreword by Sir Willmott Lewis,
Washington correspondent for the
London Times, and by Col. Roosevelt
IN his preface.
In 1896 Mr.. Rogers landed in Spain,
AZ usual, to spend his vacation period
there. He was in Barcelona when the
brief revolt of the army against the
government occurred and he saw the
fghting there as an eyewitness. Later
he travelled extensively through White
Spain-the part Of the peninsula
which Is in the hands of the rebels
under Gen. Franco. He also took the
trouble to gather much data about
conditions In Red Spain-the part
which is still under the Popular Front
regime. He sets his findings down
here, writing with a strong degree OF
personal emotion, which he makes no
effort to conceal
His conclusions are that the Popu-
lar Front government has never been
a rpnrnSpntatiVA adminix a tim ~ tha