* * * * *

As it is not Mr. Punch's habit to admit reviews of periodical publications,
I ought to say that the case of _The New Europe_ (CONSTABLE), whose first
completed volume lies before me, is exceptional. In thirty years'
experience of journalism I never remember a paper containing so much
"meat"--some of it pretty strong meat, too--in proportion to its size. In
hardly a single week since its first issue in October last have I failed to
find between its tangerine-coloured covers some article giving me
information that I did not know before, or furnishing a fresh view of
something with which I thought myself familiar. And I take it there are
many other writers--and even, perhaps, some statesmen--who have enjoyed the
same experience. Dr. SETON-WATSON and the accomplished collaborators who
march under his orange oriflamme may not always convince us (I am not sure,
for example, that _Austria est delenda_ may prove the only or the best
prescription for bringing freedom to the Jugo-Slavs of South-Eastern
Europe), but they always furnish the reader with the facts enabling him to
test their conclusions; and that in these times is a great merit. My own
feeling is that if they had begun their concerted labours a few years
earlier the War might never have happened; or at least we should have gone
into it with a much more accurate notion of the real aims of the Central
Powers, and a much better chance of quickly defeating them. The tragedies
of Serbia and Roumania would almost certainly have been averted.

* * * * *

I am unable to hold out much prospect that you will find _Frailty_
(CASSELL) a specially enlivening book. The scope of Miss OLIVE WADSLEY'S
story, sufficiently indicated by its title, does not admit of humorous
relief. But it is both vigorous and vital. Certainly it seemed hard luck on
_Charles Ley_ that, after heroically curing himself of the drug habit, he
should marry the girl of his choice only to find her a victim to strong
drink. But of course, had this not happened, the "punch" of Miss WADSLEY'S
tale would have been weakened by half. Do not, however, be alarmed; the
author knows when to stop, and confines her awful examples to these two,
thereby avoiding the error of Mrs. HENRY WOOD, who (you may recall) plunged
the entire cast of _Danesbury House_ into a flood of alcohol. Not that Miss
WADSLEY herself lacks for courage; she can rise unusually