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unlike books on the same subject by Crotch, Aronson and others, the point of view is that of a public health specialist who constantly comes face to face with rural housing difficulties in the course of a busy professional life. The book is at once scientific and practical, and in addition to being suitable for the lay reader it might well be accepted as a reliable text-book by sanitary inspectors who have been entrusted with the important duties of housing inspection under the Housing Regulations. The detection of defects which render dwellings unfit is not by any means so simple as many people believe Dr. Savage warns his readers that a dilapidated house is not necessarily unfit, while dwellings which are in a fair state of repair may, nevertheless, be defective in very important details. This is a matter upon which not only lay readers but also sanitary inspectors ­especially those in rural districts-sadly need enlightenment, and by an excellent series of photo- graphic illustrations, the writer makes doubly clear what he discusses with lucidity in the text. The second chapter has some useful sections, describing existing housing conditions and methods of dealing with common faults such as those of dampness and lack of thorough ventilation. In the fifth chapter is considered the progress of the housing survey which was made obligatory on every local authority by the Housing Town Planning, etc., Act of 1909. Dr. Savage is very disappointed with the amount of work done under the Housing Regula- tions. He gives a table showing the percentages of houses annually inspected in fifteen English counties these vary from four per cent. to ten per cent- in one instance only was more than ten per cent. of the total covered. No figures are given for any Welsh counties, but there can be no doubt that the same unsatisfactory state of affairs prevails here also. It is obvious that at the present rate of progress from ten to twenty-five years will be required to complete the survey, and in individual districts anything up to one hundred years Other chapters deal with the relation of housing to public health, and the requirements of new cottages in rural areas. It is to the last chapter in which the writer propounds his solution for the rural housing problem that the housing reformer will turn with greatest eagerness. Dr. Savage reviews the proposals that have been made by various political parties and by different schools of reformers and offers some sound criticism concerning each. He does not favour the erection of dwellings by the Central Government, but holds that State grants should be given to local authorities for general sanitary efficiency, including housing, and a special grant towards losses on municipal housing schemes on the basis of a fixed proportion of the annual deficiency. That is, any losses incurred on the housing schemes of rural authorities should be borne partly by the local authorities and partly by the Central Govern- ment. The administration of the housing grants is to be through the County Councils. The sugges- tion is not original, but it is quite practicable, and coincides very nearly with that put forward by the Land Enquiry Committee. On the whole the chapter is a disappointing one. EL.C. Friendly Russia." By Denis Garstin. With an Introduction by H. G. Wells. T. Fisher Unwin. Mr. Garstin's volume falls into two divisions, the first a collection of travel sketches, written before the outbreak of war, the second a series of impressions of the early days immediately following the momen- tous events of the first week of August, 1914. Both divisions are written with humour, and genuine sympathy, and, being in their origin contemporaneous with the events they describe, give a sense of actuality which heightens the effect of the contrast. Even after a year of war and war literature, Russian life remains curiously strange to English readers. The great majority of Mr. Garstin's place sketches describe a part of Russia, which must be strange even to many Russians, for his introduction to Russia was made in the Crimea, a land, which has in its composition, besides a distinct infusion of the Mediterranean, a very strong flavouring of Southern Asia. Mr. Garstin's description of a Tartar Wedding has scarcely a trace of Europe-none at all perhaps, except the incident of the Golosh, which, at an appointed moment of the rite, is ceremoniously placed upon the right foot of the bridegroom. Nor is there much of Europe in Ablakim the big black- bearded Tartar who lives in the little mud-built town on the mountain side with his silent, soft- eyed, crimson trowsered, women-folk, and makes a strange contrast to the musicians, professors, revolu- tionaries, and other members of the intelligent bourgeoisie who form the background of Mr. Garstin's picture of holiday life in the Crimea. When his travels bring us to Moscow we come nearer to the Russia with which we are familiar, nearer, too, to those elements of political instability which have done more than anything else to make Russia in the past seem a land of mystery and even of menace to constitutional Europe. Then comes the thunderclap of war, and in a moment one is conscious of a different atmosphere, conscious of what Mr.