18 JANUARY 1935, Page 30

VICTORIAN PARADE

By Horace Wyndham

The somewhat inclusive title is out of place on this book (Muller, 7s. 6d.), which is actually nothing but a collection of " write-ups " of some random incidents and individuals, in no sense representative of the Victorian Era. However, it is none the less excellent light reading. We are shown enough of such curiosities as Laurence Oliphant, Lady Florence Dixie and the Rev. Newman Hall, and of the attitude and behaviour of the English public to such things as the Empire Theatre case of the 'eighties, and the " Mutiny " of the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards in 1890, to make us realize that the last fifty years have not changed us as much as may seem. Perhaps the best feature of the book is the use of frequent and well-chosen quotations from contem- porary newspapers, which convey effectively the outlook of nineteenth-century journalism, so much crueller but so much less vulgar than our own.