Through the Buffer State. By John Macgregor. (F. V. White
and Co.)—Dr. Macgregor relates his travels in Siam with a chatty effervescence that is quite innocent of style or seriousness. If the reader.is thus saved the possibility of being bored, he is not likely to retain any lasting impression of what Dr. Macgregor really saw or really thought. Books of travel of any value are not written in this fashion. At the same time, far be it from us to deny that this flippant, inconsequent style has attraction for some readers, and the author conveys a good deal of miscellaneous matter and a good deal of gossip in this way without burdening the memory of an unretentive reader. Most of us would remember the description of the potentate, pensioned with a thousand dollars a day, who spends his time in the harem, smoking and drinking magnums of champagne. Facts like this are easily impressed on the memory.
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