Paris. But that Joffre acted upon the knowledge with speed and vigour shows that he can adapt himself to circumstances, which is always hard for a man of granitic mind. The mere fact that he is unimpressionable and difficult to move is a tribute to his qualities of command.

Joffre's faults-and he has them, like other men arise from his very habits of seclusion. He is as insensible to intrigue as he is to the voice of "protection," and consequently is not aware sometimes how great a part the former plays in an army organisation, as in other human institutions. He is said, in consequence, to be led astray sometimes in his estimate of men, merely because he has ruled out jealousy and base motives from his reckoning. It is to his credit that he should attribute to men his own high-mindedness and disinterestedness-but the result may be sometimes below his expectation.

Of Joffre's humanity a dozen stories are told. One of the most popular is of two airmen whom he had decorated for past services and to whom he confided a new mission. As they moved off to accomplish it, he said, "Do not the children embrace their father before they leave?" The airmen turned, and each received a paternal salute from the Commander-in-chief. The witnesses of this little scene, as well as the actors in it, were profoundly touched, for the Commander's kiss on the eve of battle has something sacramental in it to the Latin imagination. Joffre knows how to appeal to the ordinary Frenchman, and it is one of the secrets of his popularity.

He will stay a while, if he has the time, to talk to the humblest " poilu" and enquire after his family and his personal experiences since the war began. He is the great economiser of lives. and by this very trait expresses the genius of the race. The human factor always obtrudes in his calculations, and no greater contrast could be imagined than his dispositions and those of the Germans, who count lives as nought in the great war game. The

almost impersonal character of his work is such that if, unhappily, he were to disappear to-morrow, the great machine which he has created, almost as much as Kitchener created his armies, would still go on raising men and equipping them and sending them forth to fight. Joffre is not only a symbol but a system. Today the problem is so vast, the range of army activities so tremendous, that it escapes the competence of one man, however powerful and capable of reduplication, of dealing with it. Hence the supreme Commander must be necessarily more of the President of a War Board than a man imposing his personal policy. Joffre is the ideal figure for such a position, for he listens well and his extraordinarily lucid mind grasps the essentials of the problem and is able to select the right solution from a dozen alternatives. That constitutes his chief claim as a strategist at this hour: his incomparable gift for seeing into the heart of a subject and then applying the remedy, which may or may not be of his own devising. I think he would be the last man to lay claim to great originality.

He has been likened, very happily, to Turenne. He has the same sobriety, the same cool, calm temper of mind, the same command over, himself; of him it might be said, as of the great Marshal, "He was accustomed to fight without anger, to conquer without ambition, to triumph without vanity."

If you follow the picture through as outlined by Fléchier, in his great panegyric, you will see how close the resemblance is. And I like to think of Napoleon's dictum about Turenne: that he got bolder as he grew older a rare condition whereas it was just the opposite with Condé. And I am not at all sure that Joffre has not grown bolder as he has grown older. In any case, his figure stands massive, selfsufficing, symbolising the victory which cannot long escape his persistent pursuit of it.

THE plot is not the strongest part of "London Pride," the new war-play by Miss Gladys Unger and Mr. Neil Lyons which has achieved an instant success at Wyndam's. Probability frequently has to retire shamefacedly to the wings while his sworn foe Coincidence struts it boldly in the limelight; Aristotle's unities might never have been invented; and at the very end the key is suddenly changed from comedy to frank farce in a way that the purist must find very disconcerting. But "London Pride" is not a play for purists and pedants. It is merely one of the truest, jolliest and most wholesome things that London has seen for many months.

The story concerns Cuthbert Tunks, "fruit merchant" (alias "coster") and his donah, Miss Cherry Walters of the pickle factory. Cuthbert was the middle-weight champion of Silverside, E., and a person of consequence, and he loved his Cherry dearly, and she loved him.

But the war broke out to wreck their infinitesimal barque of happiness, and Cuthbert departed to France in khaki, leaving Cherry to carry on his share of the vegetable round; whence, being persecuted by the attentions of a very repulsive Town Councillor, she fled to a hospital for wounded soldiers, in the humble but honourable capacity of ward maid. Meanwhile Cuthbert had settled down to enjoy soldiering, and was making a name for himself in the trenches when, one unhappy day, he learnt, first, that his long over-due leave had been unjustly stopped, and secondly that Cherry had vanished and was probably in trouble. So he determined, very wrongly, to leave the British army to its own devices for a few days, and come home to find her. He changed identity discs with a dead comrade and affecting to have lost

his memory got shipped back to England, and-was taken to the very hospital where Cherry was. The bitter-sweet of this was almost too much for poor Cuthbert, who found the strain of personating a dead gentleman-ranker named Menzies, and at the same time resuming the status quo with the naturally suspicious Cherry very wearing; however, at a critical moment a telegram came to say that the real Menzies had been awarded the D.C.M. Cuthbert could take a dead man's name, but not his honours, and posted off to London to put matters right and report himself as a deserter. Cherry, with agonised visions of a blank wall and a firing party at dawn, posted after him; and intricate and incoherent explanations ensued. But as it turned out Cuthbert himself had gained the V.C. for what he modestly called "a bit of digging"-he had dug out some buried alive soldiers under fire-the firing party resolved itself into a triumphal procession down to Silverside, where the medal and a purse were then being presented to the hero's parents by the Mayor. So Cherry tucked the money into her stocking and the two ridiculous children set forth hand in hand to start life together.

If one has to choose between plot and characterisation the wise playgoer will not hesitate for a minute. "London Pride" is full of the most admirable and happy character-drawing. Its authors obviously know and love the ways and manners of Costerland: its quick tongues and kind hearts, its pathos and humour, its quaint inverted speech, and its innate irreverent sense of fun; and a dozen deftly etched sketches attest that they can vivify the fruits of their observation. The two full-length studies, Cherry and Cuthbert, are particularly delightful.

story is by comparison commonplace and its music, while always deft, sometimes whimsical, and generally interpretative, lacks the almost miraculous clarity and humour which makes every note of Wormser's chef d'œuvre of vital importance to the plot. But judged strictly on its own merits the new Christmas play at the Apollo is very charming and delightful. It is simple, tender, sentimental and direct-all good things at any time, but especially in a wordless play. Pierrot

returning home on Christmas Eve realises, in spite of the efforts of Madame Pingouin his housekeeper to cheer him up, that he is very lonely, and falls to musing over the fire on his vanished childhood.. A knock is heard at the door, he opens it and finds a poor little waif, Fanette, whom he decides to adopt. Ten years pass. Fanette has grown into a lovely girl, and Pierrot discovers one day that he loves her; but she has given her heart to young Jacques. Surprising their secret, Pierrot, half-mad with grief and jealousy, bids little Fanette choose: either let her renounce Jacques altogether, or go with him and never darken her guardian's doors again. She cleaves to her lover, and poor Pierrot, broken-hearted but stubborn, is left alone once more. Another eight years drag slowly by, and again it is Christmas eve. Pierrot has never forgiven Fanette; he cannot even bear to hear her name mentioned, but he treasures her photograph and devours it with kisses when old Mme. Pingouin is

not by. He falls asleep, and Fanette and Jacques steal in with their little daughter to beg forgiveness. They leave the child, and Pierrot, waking, sees her. At first he believes he is still dreaming of Fanette, but soon realises this is her little girl. He tries to be angry, but her kisses melt his frozen heart; and Fanette and Jacques run in and are, forgiven.

Mr. Norman McKinnel, whom before the event one would as soon have expected to play Pierrot as to see Sir George Alexander in the rôle of clown, proved to be most unexpectedly in the picture The Pierrot of the play is not the Pierrot of convention, and he made no attempt to play him as such. Joan Morgan, one of the most exquisite children I have ever seen on the stage, made the success of the evening, but the most notable acting came from "Miss Gregory, who as Mme. Pingouin played with a careful finish and rhythm in which the rest of the cast was rather lacking. A. CROOM-JOHNSON.

"I wish to make surgeons take up this work so that it may not be lost when I die, but be used as an additional weapon against disease."-Mr. BARKER to The Lancet, 1910. "It seems perfectly clear that if Mr. Barker were to come to an untimely death, his knowledge which appears to be of very real value to humanity, would die with him, and that would be an undying disgrace to the profession." "SYNAPIS" in The Medical Press, 1916.

Thus, after twenty years' steady work with such remarkable success that it can be truly said that 90 per cent. of the cases undertaken by Mr. Barker have been absolutely cured-cases, most of which had been given up as incurable by members of the medical profession-The Medical Press, an organ of the Faculty, has had the courage to admit that to let Mr. Barker's knowledge die with him would be an undying disgrace to the profession.. That the majority of the profession itself has come to realise this is apparent by the mass of correspondence from medical men which has been received by the paper in question-correspondence to which F.R.C.S.'s and M.D.'s put their signatures. "If," says "Synapis,"

"there is indeed so much to be said in favour of these methods, it is astonishing that it has not been said before." But it has been said before; only, alas ! because it did not come through the narrow recognised channels of the profession, it was scorned by the Faculty-although it is a most remarkable but true fact that Mr. Barker has cured numerous members of the profession, to say nothing of their sons and daughters and relatives. Though the medical Press has, on the whole, banned his work, articles bringing his work before the public have appeared

continuously of late years in such wellknown magazines as The Nineteenth Century, The Fortnightly Review, and others. In 1910 Mr. Stead wrote in THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS of Mr. Barker's work, and told what he called "The Strange True Story of a Pioneer in Park Lane," in an article entitled entitled "The Hinterland of Surgery," in which he quoted case after case where permanent cures had been effected through Mr. Barker's manipulative power. He showed how, by banning Mr. Barker, the medical profession were taking it upon themselves to assert that so far as it lay in their power the cripple, the halt and the lame should not profit by him. He ended his article with an appeal to all the recognised chiefs of the medical profession to lose no time in instituting a committee of surgeons-as suggested and asked for by Mr. Barker himself-whose names would command the respect of the public, to undertake a scientific investigation of the methods of the manipulative surgery as practised by Mr. Barker.

During six years nothing has been done. The Faculty have refused again and again to acknowledge him and all his offers to give up his practice and use his powers for the benefit of our soldiers and sailors have been ignored. Now, after much valuable time has been lost, do these letters signed by eminent doctors, these leading articles in The Medical Press mean vindication at last for Mr. Barker and his manipulative powers? We hope they do. The Faculty owe it to Mr. Barker himself, but they owe it in a still greater degree to the nation, to come out in the open and give Mr. Barker the opportunity, offered and withdrawn in 1906, to demonstrate his methods, the soundness and effectiveness of which have been proved again and again.

C

1. All goes well with us. We have just celebrated our new victories by lively patriotic demonstrations. . . .

ATROCITIES

A Young Indian's View of the Kaiser.

GHOST OF ATROCITIES: "Thy atrocities bid thee despair and die!"

[The above cartoon is from a small volume of "Amateur War Cartoons," by Dinoo S. Bastavala. They were sketched at intervals between 1914 and 1915, the artist then being twelve years of age. This is vouched for by Dr. E. Wacha, who says that his granddaughter had no idea of her work being published; but Lady Willingdon suggested the drawings should be slightly touched up by a trained artist and then printed and sold partly for a War Fund and partly for a useful Parsi Charity.-ED.]