A SURGEON IN KHAKI.
By A. A. MARTIN, M.D., F.R.C.S. Eng.
With Illustrations. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
Dr. Martin is a New Zealander, who served as a surgeon in the South African War, and last summer he made a professional tour of some well-known British and American clinics. When the war broke out he was attending the British Medical Association meetings at Aberdeen. He at once came to London, and offered his services to the Royal Army Medical Corps, and was given a temporary commission in that body. After a short time at Aldershot he was transferred to the base of the British Expeditionary Force in France. From there he moved to the front, arriving on the scene of actual fighting just at the moment when the great retreat had reached its furthest point, and the French and British armies were about to assume the offensive. Dr. Martin was attached to one of the Field Ambulances, and did his share of its work at the battles on the Marne and the Aisne, and afterwards in Flanders.
Although it is written by a surgeon, and contains one or two chapters on the professional side of the campaign, this book is essentially one for the general reader. It is written in a fresh, free style that is becoming noticeable as a characteristic of writers from the Antipodes; and as the author does not scorn to give the small details of how he fared from day to day, the reader gets a more vivid idea of the events as they struck the individual on the spot than has hitherto been given.
REMINISCENCES OF JOHN ADYE CURRAN, K.C.
With Portrait. Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. net.
A fund of good stories seems inseparable from a career at the Irish Bar, and when their possessor elects to place them on record for the benefit of the public, the reader may look forward to a treat. The earlier portion of the book deals with the author’s career at the Irish Bar, in the course of which we get illuminating sketches of many of the great Judges and Advocates who have so nobly sustained its fame. The pièce de résistance of these reminiscences is, however, the detailed and most interesting account of the unravelling of the Phœnix Park Conspiracy, and the steps by which the ringleaders were brought to justice. This episode exhibits him as a strong and fearless man equipped with a fund of shrewd common sense and the enviable power of guessing correctly at the line events had taken. Later on Mr. Curran was engaged in the very arduous work of stamping out agrarian crime from a disturbed district in which he again showed a remarkable combination of courage and tact in dealing with a problem bristling with difficulties.
THIRTY YEARS A REFEREE.
By EUGENE CORRI.