The Oaks and Porto Rican Campaigns. By Richard Harding Davis.
(W. Heinemann. 7s. 6d.)—This book by a war corre- spondent gives the reader the same impression of reality as do the snapshot photographs by which it is illustrated. The misconduct of the transport Captains, who regarded the interests of the ship- owners and not of the Army, and would go twenty miles out to sea if they heard firing, is severely criticised. A strong case is made out against General Shafter as incompetent,—prostrate, as he him- self confessed to a foreign Attaché, in body and mind. For the rest, the book is a lively narrative, full of high spirits and enthusiasm for the American Army,—men and officers. No doubt all soldiers grin and bear the sufferings of war, but there seems an unusual self-restraint and cheerfulness about the grin of the American. We must admire the coolness of the wounded man who says : "I have punctured my tyre this time "—and says no more—and of the war correspondent who, wounded in the region of the spine, wrote for his paper between the convulsion e of agony. Cleanliness obtains among the Americans. "Nothing seemed so much to impress the foreign Attaches as the passing of company after company of regulars each with a toothbrush twisted in his hat-band."
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