The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 16

THE BROOKLYN DAILY KAfiLF. NEW YORK. WEDNESDAY. MARCH 2S. 192S.

"WHEN NEW YORK WAS REALLY MORAND-OTHER BOOKS 16 SOME FAMOUS ENGLISHMEN I I Africa Done by Tea Cup Confessions Passed in Review MARION LELAND GEORGE CURRIE Elinor Wylie Was Always in Love With Mr. Hazard, Sh Says, and Michael Monahan Confesses His Esteem for Jeanne d'Arc in This Happy Springtide. Cinderella, the Small Town Girl Dawn Powell's "She Walks la Beauty" Lives Up to Distinction of Her Title. By WILLIAM WEES. FOR some reason, not.

perhaps, easy to discover, recent American novelists have done more 3Jjf iH Herbert Asbury's History of Gotham's Gang Warfare Beggars Fiction If Buddha Returned to the West or Hast Books John Erskine Admires. born of responsive appreciation of her latest achievement, "Mr Hodge and Mr. Hazard" (Alfred A. Kaopii. i The informality of receiving me in her dressing gown, which was of peach-colored satin combined- will-green crepe de chine and needed no apology at all.

brought the confession that she was still a bit tired from having helped entertain the day' before at the Guild reception to Trader Horn and would feel more relaxed in dis'-inguished work in the character-batlon of the small-town girl than, so f.ir as this reviewer can recall, any Movie Cameras Martin Johnson Studies Lions as Though They Were Specimens of Ravening Parlor Beasts. By FRANCIS EMERY. IN THIS recurrence of the open season of books on Africa and the disappearance of the Dark Continent's wooliness, savagery, monarchs of the jungle and weird landscapes, Martin Johnson brings out his "Safari," following Daniel W. Streeter's "Camels," dealing with the Sudan country. (Both are Putnams's.) To one who has seen "Simba," the gorgeously colored Johnson picture of the home life of lions, rhlnoceri, giraffes, ostriches and the peculiarly individual beasts of the veldt and jungle, and has read "Safari." it Is I evident that Mr.

Johnson's camera Is far more effective than his pen. The most striking feature of the handsomely-bound and gilt-edged volume is the Inclusion of three wore or so illustrations from the author's motion picture that was both faithful and other type figure on the American set ne. the clinging thing, which, of The best of them Is possibly Booth Tarkington's "Alice Adams." but there have been others, also, portrayed with was most becoming. Perhaps the most vital of the afternoon's confessions were those touch ing upon Mr. Hazard, since that sensi an adept and artistic typewriter.

"Hot by Harvey Ferguson, was such a story, and so was Homer Croy's "West of the Water tive gentleman, between the covers oil WICKEDNESS In the grand manner lias a human frailty that lends it perverse dignity. Consequently, one reads Herbert Asbury's "The Gangs of New York" (Alfred A. Knopf) with a secret throb of hurt, for it is obvious that New York has sunk from her lofty though sinful estate of evil doing. The Five Points crowd has been broken up. The Dead Rabbits are an indistinct memory.

The Hudson Dusters are meat for Sunday stories, whenever the city's newspapers discover that their cupboards are bare of copy. The Bowery is slowly becoming drably respectable, a place for business rather than for bums. We have been driven to depend for naughtiness upon night clubs, bootleggers and gamblers, who. by comparison with Moirissey. for instance, are plain pikers.

The night clubs are naughty, of course, to those in quest of naughtiness. One is politely robbed by the menu, but there is no law against fleecing suckers honor yy. I understand that after the festivities have waxed hot one me De gypped more rudely, but since a fool and his money have always been soon parted, one who has escaped can hardly be expected to get steamed up over that. The fact is, night clubs, like so much else in this metropolis, are mostly cloaked in the appearance of badness only. It is but rarely that a good customer is mundered Just because the bouncer didn't like his looks.

I "Mr. Hazard and Mr. Hodge," is jus and such another now is "She Walks going through the ordeal of meeting in Beauty," by Dawn Powell tBren- his reading public. Elinor Wylie con fesses she is deeply (poignantly. tano'si.

All these are not the same small town girl. Miss Powell's Linda is the girl born the other side of the railroad tracks, who is, nevertheless, conscious of being superior to her surroundings, who longs to leap the gap into the golden land of the town's The jacket by Aladjalov for "Portraits of the New Century by E. uest people and largely longs in should say) in love with Mr. Hazard: and always will be, and could never', for a moment laugh at his futility as, I find, some critics seem to think she does. But to those of us who must sob (however dryly) at the close of, the story, this was an unnecessary-confession.

'I Unnecessary, too, was this author's confession of the Joy she finds in writing her keenly interpretive phrase: of the sheerest beauty and meaning regardless of whether they will flm an appreciative reader or not, though of course, she is always sure of a few vain. Raymond, author of "Uncensored Celebrities Doubleday-Doran wilt 'She Walks In Beauty" leaves you with a present sense of the social cruelties and barbarities that a small publish the volume'. FORTIFIED by the timely arrival of Helen Hathaway's Insinuatingly labeled book, "Manners" E. P. Dutton Sc which tells all about our American etiquette yes there is such a thing, and Helen Hathaway makes It a logical and comfortable thing to acquire), I decided that even the elegance of the Century's "Green Tea" at the Savoy-Plaza would offer nothing I couldn't cope with and so bravely peeped in at their reception to a few "Centurions" and the many others who.

It seemed, Included everybody in the book world. Since it was 6 o'clock of that day when my own tea cups had lured Dunsany farther up the street. I wasn't looking for more confessions but was glad of the opportunity to smile upon so many interesting people, not the least of whom was that much beloved "grand old man" with the halo ot soft silver hair and a fund of anecdotes Michael Monahan, whom you remember for the fine vigorous prose of the "Heine" biography and of "An Attic Dreamer," and who has now given us another interpretive biography In "My Jeanne d'Arc" (Century Company). In it he is. of course, vigorous as well as dramatic and reverential, and, being Monahan, doesn't resist making a few deft passes at the English.

There, too, was Elinor Wylle! I watched her while William Rose Benet (her husband) chatted with me over the rims of our small-stemmed glasses there didn't seem to be any tea cups, though there was plenty of party. Watching Elinor it was easy to see that the mystery about her magnetism is real and not merely a town legend. She was always the center of an admiring group. Of course, that doesn't answer the question which a young author of the same sex put to me the other day, "What do you think is the secret of Elinor Wylie's charm?" Perhaps I evaded the Issue somewhat by answering, "That is something you must feel and experience; it Is mostly will and an intensity which cannot be analyzed or imitated." I SHOULD feel qualified on the subject of Elinor Wylle, for just recently she relaxed Into revelations and a few confessions during a tete-a-tete at her home, begun on the intimate little sofa in the calm of the cool Georgian atmosphere, where we started with a mutual understanding town can inflict on those who com mit the crime of living in the wrong neignoornood. in any metropolis Linda need have had no trouble in Rhodes.

Builder disguising her origin. In Birchfleld no such concealment was possible. Here everyone knew her and knew where she lived and what her grandmother Of Great Empi ire AND speaking of romance, we'v some interesting confessions, mad-over the tea cups, by Cleveland Chase, to whom we owe a real deb of gratitude for translating 0.1 the best romances of the season, "Thi Years Between" (Longmans. Green in which Paul Feval and- was even it the Bener People pretended not to see her on Maple ave. The cold.

hard, calculating little Co. J. G. McDonald, a close associate of Rhodes Curing the last 12 vears of his lite, gives us an Intimate biography of the great figure, going far to paint the background for his actions by disclosing the dreams which, by their materialization, sained from the jungle wastes hundreds of thousands of square miles for the Union of South Africa. Mr.

McDonald, in the realization that a life of Rhodes must abo be a history oi South Africa, has treated his subject in a cause and effect manner, allowing the results produced by Rhodes to reflect his thoughts and actions. The broal inf uence of the man who was at soul of Linda's eventually works her thrilling. Patient and skilled enough to tramp for miles and sweat for days to photograph the unuspectlng lion or elephant romping In his native lair, and to do a good and faithful job of It, too, Mr. Johnson by the same token appears much too phlegmatic to record what he did or attach either interpretation or imagination to his experiences. The result Is apt to be somewhat tedious to the dlvan explorer who likes his beasts bloodthirsty and his savages emitting war whoops and romping about In exotic dances, and his Dark Continent lighted by only floric colors.

Mr. Johnson's animals, on which he is an authority, are made to seem like so many barnyard quadrupeds and his narrative reels off in much the manner of a Down East farmer describing the delightful qualities of his pet cows and roosters. There is little of Africa, Its mysteries, color, feverish heat and dangers confronting such pioneers as the author in the volume. Mr. Johnson stretches no point in favor of his readers' imagination.

The African native and scene are slurred over too completely. One thing a reader can be grateful for, however, is his introduction to Mrs. Johnson. It is Osa who holds the gun and drops the charging rhinoceros and lion in their tracks in the rare times they resent his camera. She furnishes the personality of Mr.

Johnson's volume so much so, in way out or ner handicap, other Lindas, it is obvious, do not and can't. Cold and calculating as she is, she evokes a vivid sympathy for her plight, for the plight of all the smalltown Lindas not so lucky as she. EVEN our hijacking bullies are pale imitations of Bill the Butcher, one of the greatest eye gougers in the history of that New York which was at one with Sodom and Gomorrah. What have we by way of compensation for the departed Bill McGlory's Armory Hall, the Haymarket or the Black and Tan? Nothing. When Wild Bill Lovett was murdered down on the waterfront the city turned itself inside out in an ague of shivering ecstasy.

Mayor Hylan orated that Lovett was the last of the gangsters and wrote a letter to Mr. Enright or was it Davy Hirshfield drawing attention to the fact that gangsters, gamblers and ladies of the evening had been suppressed by his administration. The police stuck out their chests and preened their feathers. Yet Lovett was crawling vermin compared to Monk Eastman or Humpty Jackson, warriors in the old tradition, brave, murderous and gloriously bad. Chicago has managed to continue such activities as Louie the Lump made famous In our midst.

Chicago, perhaps, has improved upon them. Machine guns never spit hot lead into the sidewalks of New York, but they do out there where Big Bill Thompson is waging a single-handed war against King George of England. There waa something sublimely simple about gang warfare in little old New York. Johnny Spanish, desiring to clothe his "skoit" in silks and "poils," attended Kid Jigger's stuss game and declared himself in on the profits. When the Kid objected, Johnny said curtly: "All right, Til bump youse off tomorrow night." Lassez, its French authors, revive, the Dumas tradition.

And another time you'll hear some I of the very helpful confessions on Helen Hathaway, whose nice sensible book which started this column on 1W way today has an individual charm Its own, especially in those place" where its author stresses the important points of manners Involving cor. sideration of others. Holding more of the authors sym pathy, but drawn with less compel ling truth is, Linda sister. Dome, she once financier, statesman and public who Is also of the socially un-elect but doesn't care. And around these is a group of lesser characters, vividly sketched in, to add to the hero is carefully shown, and witn the intimate vignettes and deeds of the man Himself, so revealing of character, produce a composite picture which does credit to the author's knowledge and loving care.

It is an excellent story, well worth reading, well worth a place In your ROOKS BOUGHT. SUMMIRBEIX'8 PiOOC Score, 77 DeKalb av, will pay canh for large or amall libraries, phone TRIancI 3949. An Intimate Estimate of the Man Who Painted So Much Red on Africa's Map. By ALLAN H. KELLER.

ENGLAND has been blessed wilts many men whose lives have been given to her progress, but there are few of them who rank with Cecil Rhodes, the empire builder, under whose hands so much of Africa was gathered to the knees of Britain's Lion. Not content alone to paint the world map red. Rhodes also established the scholarships for students from all English-speaking lands to go to Oxford, thus initiating one of the great steps toward international peace and welfare. At the age of 17 Cecil Rhodes landed in Africa to begin the greatest career in the history of the Dark Continent. Thirty-two years later lie died, after an existence packed with financial and political struggles and triumphs; a life cut short on the eve of the culmination of his dream of confederation, for the Boer War, which was to bring the Orange Free State and the Transvaal under Bn -ish rule, had not vet ended.

In "Rhodes A Life" (McBride li library of American true tales. ND there Is nothing saccharine A REMOVAL OF KIOSKS Donald's affection for his subject. It was a lucid evidence of Rhodes' pie-eminent ability that made all his TO BE URGED AT MEETING Civic organizations and members of the 7th A. D. Democratic Club will launch tonight the first move to abolish the 4th ave.

subway kiosks at the ARGONAUT BOOKSHOP Brooklyn's oni iOOJisHOP Our Grcuiatinc' Library permits you to lead the new Novels as they appear, for Fifteen Cents. We carry also First Editions, Rire Books and classics in fine bindings. CSLSTON HOWILL NATHAN BECKS, J. 142 Lawrence St. near Fulton So clubrooms.

521 4Gth st. John Heffer-nan, president of the club, will be in charge. Harry T. Woods, deputy commissioner of the Department of Water Supply. Gas and Electricity, and several others are scheduled to speak.

Other improvements in the district will be discussed. Goodspeed's Book Shop IS A NATIONAL INSTITUTION IU fork of Rare and Choice Book. Prlnti jnil AiitiiKraiiln If mada arcpMlhle to dtatanl linjfra hy appelaHted ratalncura Xo. 1118. Kara Amsrlcan (bull Illmtrau-d, prli a Silrl x.i jnn, Jroa; Koa.

170 and 17a Mrat Kdltlont and Other Hare Hooka frw; IT1, Genealogy prlea lue No. 172, ien-ei-nl Americana roe Trlnt Catalogs, No. 6, Napoleonic free. When in Rnnttin Armrae in GOODSPEED'S Nog. 7 and fA Aahburton Place Branch Shopa at Ne.

5 Park Street Ne. Milk Street associates love him. His companions in the goldflelds, In the Kimberly diamond mines and those engaged in furthering his two great hobbies the Cape to Cairo railway and telegraph all respected Rhodes with an adoration amounting to worship. It was this adoration that led Allan Wilson and his band of men to annihilation by the savages; it was the same adoration for what Rhodes wanted and dreamed of that made Jameson undertake the 111-advlsed raid against the tyrannical Kruger at Johannesburg. It did not matter that the first was poor maneuvering and the second a hostile move against the peace of two countries.

fact, that we wish the family duties could have been so arranged that Mrs. Johnson wrote the book while her husband dried the dishes. Mrs. Streeter, whose pen catches the verve and color of the continent that has so fascinated him, has put into his volume of a camel safari along the Abyssinian frontier the elements that Mr. Johnson's tome lacks.

But still his book doesn't quite measure up to his "Denatured Africa" of last season. The keenness of Mr. Streeter's observation and the whimsical satire which clothed his account of his first safari through the jungles and veldts were somewhat dimmed on his second trip. Telephone Triinjlt 4W6A great books. In "The Delight of Great Books" (Bobbs-Merrill).

And it Is a very honest, straightforwaid collection of criticisms, exquisitely spun and yet Abraham Straus aa of considerable strength. For your information I list his preferences: "Canterbury Tales of Chaucer" "the poet who could help us to love human nature even while he taught us to smile at it." Malory's "Morte d'Arthur" "dramatic." Ah. quite so. and, in so far as Professor Erskine found the story of Now That Spring Is Here BROOKLYN- You'll Be Interested in ne flees, this time back to Karastra. We leave him, being crowned with all the Oriental pomp and heathenism which our missionaries, for some reason, seem unable to circumvent.

AS a story of the West turning for hope to the East, and the East turning for Inspiration to the West, each dissatisfied with its own philosophy, "The Living Buddha" is scathing satire, done with polish and velvet-covered brickbats such as Paul Morand so expertly manipulates. But "The Living Buddha" Is more than a mere satire. It is a severe critique of the contemporary confusion of Ideas. For that reason it will be as seed Bown upon stony ground, because nothing Is quite so irritating as to be laughed at for whatever of ideas we still painfully and weakly conceive. Some of the contempt which Sinclair Lewis spews upon Main Street When Will Your Garden Bloom? Galahad, tremendously profitable.

"The Faerie Queene" of Edmund Spenser which is slowly being buried under the dust of scholastic prescription. Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" which despite Jane Cowl and the Horace Llveright school of renovation defies improvement. Shakespeare's "TJie Tempest" also suffering from scholastic ON THE dot, Johnny showed up for the bump off. But the Kid was wise. He retreated from the street.

And all Johnny killed that night was an eight-year-old girl who foolishly got In the way of one of his bullets. Johnny fled. Eight months later he returned to find his "skoit" blooming in the arms of the terrible but amorous Kid Dropper. Now, the gangster of that period didn't go bleating the aches of hia broken heart to strangers in blind pigs. Love was to him a private matter.

Johnny coaxed the Magdalene into a taxicab, took her out to Maspeth, L. backed her up against a tree and pumped her full of She gave birth to a baby before she died. Three of the Infant's fingers had been shot off. Even the clergy managed to get tarred with the stick of the bad man's cussedness. The Rev.

Mr. Arnold and his contemporaries of the cloth reformed John Allen and other masters of brass check houses, until the old N. Y. Times exposed the revival by printing the news that one of the conditions under which the reverend zealots obtained the houses of shame for prayer meetings was that Allen and Slocum and Tommy Hadden, for instance, were to appear, pray and confess their sins. Allen was paid $350 a month for the privilege of holding prayer in his bawdy resort and for testifying publicly that he was in a state of grace.

In fact, Kid Burns early Imperiled the good repute of the revival by standing outside, cursing the missionaries because they wouldn't hurry up and return his rat pit for the business of the night. THE BEST we can do now is a sewer scandal or a bootleggers' squabble, and most of the latter are waged upon the roads of the far suburbs. One may walk under Brooklyn Bridge at night without being blackjacked and robbed of his watch. People sail In ships at midnight from piers where once the Hudson Dusters made darkness a cloak of terror. The New York Central long ago clubbed the ambition out of Owney Madden Gophers in Hell's Kitchen.

Are we any better for it? The Rev. John Roach Straton claim we aren't. And certainly badness with excitement was preferable to badness without it. As one looks back upon good hard-boiled old Sadie the Goat and the dour Hicks, who was hanged on Bedloe's Island while the city made a regatta day of the occasion, and the Bowery Boys and the Old Brewery nest of sin, one can see why the churches are no longer crowded. In the ancient days one turned to religion In desperation, for comfort.

But now one can go about of a Sunday assured that he may return with his watch and bankroll and without a cracked head or a slit throat. We are growing fat in our new freedom. Herbert Asbury's book speaks for iuelf. It belongs among the saintly tombstones of Trinity Chuich. a monument to a sturdier Gotham.

Books About Gardens In Loeser'3 Book Shop you will find Garden Books of all kinds. amateurs and professional gardeners. Included are: Color in My Garden, by Wilder $3.50 The Garden Month by Month, by Sedgwick $8.50 Flowers and Ferns in Their Haunta, by Wright $2 The Beginner's Garden, by King S2 Familiar Flowera of Field and Garden, by Mathewi, at $2.50 Gardening for Pleasure, by Hondereon $2 The Flower Garden Day by Day, by King $1.50 The Irii, by Wi.ter $1.25 The Garden Lover, by Bailey $1.50 The Strawberry, by Frnier $1.25 The Garden Book, by Davit $1.25 Flowera for Every Garden, by Buah-Brown $1.75 Landacape Daaign, by Hubbard and Kimball Loeaer's Main Floor. appears in the writings ot Morand. but it is a loftier contempt, because it is restrained.

Surrounded by so many physical allures, Morand mar vels that mankind is so hard put to Invent evils for his entertainment. And although he Is a Bourbon among writers, he nevertheless maintains a regretful affection for a democratic Milton Paradise Lost tue noblest expression in English literature of what we like to call the modern spirit." "The Waverly Novels" of Sir Walter Scott and one can forgive Professor Erskine for all his transgressions in "Galahad" because he recognizos the worth of Scott and is not dazzled by the shoddy of the pooh-pooliers among the too lofty-browed. Bvron's "Don Juan" and why not? Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" for more obscure reasons. George Merediths "The Ordeal of Richard Feverel" obviously. Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" the same, the same.

George Bernard Shaw's "Candida" and Professor Erskine is surely entitled to his own opinion. "Modern Irish Poetry" which Is to say. modern but real poetry. Altogether a chatty, agreeable, Informative and satisfying book. world that miRht have been, but which, now that the war has been fought, apparently never will be.

Jail Is no blunderer, but a bewildered young man who still believes In Santa Clans. As a story of disillusionment It is sour and bitter. As a work of art. It makes our ordinary betrayers of public shibboleths seem clumsy and quacklsh by comparison. JOHN ERSKINE, having told us the low down about Helen of Troy and Sir Galahad and Adam and Eve and Lilith, leaves off peddling ancient gossip to tell us why he likes certain Garden and Nature Books for amateur and veteran gardeners Little Garden Series bato trot Tip rC VI VM uwottow (By Mre.

Franett King) Little Gardens for Mttlc Money Roses in the Little Garden Peonies in the Little Garden Iris in the Little Variety in the Little Garden ia Jl. in I I 1.7.1 rspring xne inline uaruen BOOK OF BULBS, bji F. F. KockwrU. 2.95 BULBS THAT BLOOM IN THE SPRING, T.

A. Wertnn 1.96 GUIDE TO TREES, C. C. Curt in, Ph.D. 1.46 THE WOMAN'S FLOWER GARDEN, I'll J.

Is. Kift 96o THE FLOWER GARDEN DAY BY DAY 1.46 THE GLADIOLUS BOOK, F. T. MrLraa, W. K.

Clark and listing the important writings of the current season, including fiction, history, biography, religious and children's books, and containing interesting reviews by George 4.95 HOWEVER, don't quote me as preaching the creed of the Prince of Darkness. The war taught me to place a high value upon my skin. And if I were ever called upon to pass through Doyers that crooked little alley whose paving blocks are drenched with Chinese blood shed in Tong wars, I would much rather walk than take It on the run. Persons like Dopey Benny are much more fascinating In a book than they are In the flesh, filled with red-eye and waving a smoking pistol. And if I ever came upon such a warning aa the Car Barn gang posted: "Cops Keep Out." I.

a a law-abiding citizen, would lump It. on the theory that a pillar of society had no business where arms of the law went in half dozens and that fearfully. But as one loving peace and but recently succumbed to the narcotic Influence of a radio set. I rejoice that Asbury has chosen to give me his story straight. A more gruesome record of murder, rapine and plain unabaMied wickedness has yet to come to my attention.

Gangs of New York'' makes paupers out of all our detective fiction PAUL MORAND launches a more suotle au.au.lt on our complacency In "The Living Buddha 'Henry Hull Co). He concerns himself with the peregrination of Jail, Prince ot the land of Karastra. who mould return the world to the precepts of Buddha. That the Eat ot Jail Is stiff-necked In Its repudiation of the teachings of the great uiaier In no ise beclouds the satirical thrusts which the author makes trm heart of "civilization," particularly Christian rlvllization. Jail r.v npr-a.

to enter Cambridge. And there he marvels, for it appears to him that neither Christ nor Buddha may have more than an academic Interest to students. And so. after a disheartening attempt to mimmnn blowsy Englishmen to the fret of Buddha, an attempt made Iiom a soapbox In Hyde Park. Jail flees to Fianre.

There he becomes a sensation. A girl he had befriended In London and had enriched takes him undpr her lng. But the teachings of Buddha hardly fit Into the ri'iitltie of a PariMnn lady of Joy So Jail, having met a young American girl and traveled the gypsy trail Itli her. (nines to America, there to declare his great love. Arrived in Clod Country, nine Bgaifi the teachings of the Christian's Ma.ter are revealed as nradenilc prr-ai'liuuis.

so far as they sflect such nature's noblemen a- jou and I. Jail U.o dark to latUIy the waiters at Pntrry s. His adored Is frankly ashamed to be seen alUt hUn. So again II. inrhrr GARDEN GUIDE, lil A.

T. Dr La Marr THE COMPLETE GARDEN, ') A. IK Tniilnv Currie and his stair of reviewer! 1.46 6.00 1.21 121 'will be issued in tabloid form of the regular edition of THE GLADIOLUS, bn a. c. itrai, rh.n.

THE IRIS, J. C. Winter HARDY SHRUBS, bi F. A. Waunh 1.21 The Nature Library TREES.

F. J. Knar, 3.45 BUTTERFLIES, C. M. Werd 3.45 ANIMALS, hi F.

T. Srtan 3.45 BIRDS, by S. Hltinrlian 3.45 St Our Ditplay on the Mtxtanint A A. M.feninr. ail Italleliti.

THE BROOKLYN EAGLE On Wednesday, April 4th OUiar A. S. Stota News 5, 6, 12 and A3 k-4.