Evening star., 1938-05-22

changes race tracks and casinos and
travel by the luxury liners. In his
period of service. says Inspector Smith.
he memorized the names and faces of
hundreds of these sharpers, and got so
expert In dealing with them that he
could spot them at their work by
sort Of extra sense-or. If not exactly
that. very near 1t. He frequented their
haunts and even gained admission to a
club the membership of which was
limited to high-grade crooks. 1t is
pleasant to read, too. that he was in
strumental In getting considerable
number of these blackguards safely be-
hind prison bars.
His book is simply series of anec-
dotes. each covering the activities of
some crook or gang of crooks as they
went about fleeing the mugs" 1t is
lively and readable; 1t has the unmis-
taxable flavor Of expert knowledge be-
hind 1t. It Is. in short, an account of
what Scotland Yard detective really
does do. And that. just for a change,
ought to have some attraction.
Incidentally Inspector Smith says
that the novels about crime detecting
are laugh. They are nice to read, he
admits, but implies that if real crime
catchers proceeded in the manner of
their fictional counterparts it would be
a grand world for criminals And GER
tainly Inspector Smith should know.
INSANITY FAIR. BY Douglas Reed.
New York: Covici Friede.
NOW that virtually all the Amer
ican newspaper men have written
their life histories, their English COL
leagues are joining the procession, and
this book is one more Of that COM
pany. 1t is the story of British jour-
nalist in postwar Germany One can
only say Of it what one says of all
these stories-it is interesting in it.
self but repetitious of what has been
written by other reporters already. Vim
cent Shean. Negley Farson and the
original three or four of the press
autobiographers undeniably had new
field and an untried claim on public
attention. The men who have followed
in their footsteps have perforce done
no more than they-because there was
nothing more to do. The great num-
ber Of foreign correspondents after the
war were centered in the same places,
assigned to much the same events and,
as these life histories show. were very
much Of an opinion concerning the
merits of what happened. The only
scope for individual quality in their
books, therefore. is in the personal
matter, which, of course, is Of very
minor interest anyway
In this respect Douglas Reed informs
us that he was a poor boy, that he
went to a board school, instead OF a
public school, that he entered life as
a clerk and for long time saw little
chance of bridging the gulf which in
England separates the clerical worker
from the professional. He had brief
interlude Of hope when, after the
war. he became secretary to Lord
Northcliffe. It seemed to him then
that he was on his way to a newspaper
career. But the great man fired him
because he happened one day to be
eating lunch when wanted for duty.
and back he went to the humble ranks
Of clerking. Eventually. however, he
got his chance at writing. and after
some three years was sent to postwar
Germany.
The rest Of the book is his observa-
tions on the state of postwar Europe
as seen from the German angle. 1t
tells of the rise of Hitler, of the
Reichstag fire, OF the Jewish persecu-
tions and the smothering out of all po-
litical opposition to the Nazis. 1t de-
scribes the various forms of hysteria
which swept over the defeated German
people-nudism, jazz. debauchery and
all the rest of it. 1t interprets. from
the authors point of view, the effect
Of Germany's political developments
on the rest Of Europe.
On the whole, the book is interesting.
It is neither worse nor better than the
run of these journalists lives So far,
the reviewer thinks that the American
news men have done better jobs in
telling their stories. But the Britishers
have much the same stories to tell,
and the difference ordinarily is not
enough to make it possible to commend
one book particularly above the rest
They are a procession, and that Is
about all that can be said OF them.
THE EVOLUTION OF PHYSICS.
Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld.
New York: Simon g. Schuster.
EVEN after 80 years there is no
abatement of interest in rela-
tivity. Every new experiment bearing
upon it-like the atomic clock test re-
ported before the National Academy
of Sciences here few days ago and
was described on the front pages of
half the newspapers in the country
Is followed with intense interest.
This interest is shared both by
physicists and mathematicians and by
the general public. It used to be said
that only a dozen or 80 men in the
world could understand the theories
Of Prof. Einstein. This was obviously
an exaggeration. There are more than
q dozen men in Washington who
understand them thoroughly. The
fact remains, however, that the
mathematical subtleties are beyond
almost everybody except professional
mathematicians who make . real
effort to master them.
Why, then, the appeal of the sub
ject? The public is not likely to have
any avid concern over abStruse