lawlessness only equalled by its hatred of work, _Diaz_ stands for a
tyranny certainly, but for a unified orderly tyranny, preferable, one
might think, to a myriad petty outlawries. If little of the country's
wealth found its way beyond the narrowest of circles during his long
control, and if certain Indian tribes were shamefully enslaved--a fact
which is neither denied nor condoned--still railways and harbours
did get themselves built and the dictator himself lived a life of
uncorrupt simplicity. He has been blamed for failure to establish
enduringly the civilisation that Europe thought bad been attained, but
on this the author's verdict is an unhesitating acquittal. Only a god
could have done better, he thinks, and, in a series of illuminating
analyses of the material to be moulded he shows how anything more than
a superficial improvement was humanly impossible. Until that day of
absorption in the United States which Mr. HANNAY considers fortunately
inevitable, Mexico has no chance, he maintains, of even a moderately
good government except under a firm dictatorship; and so he renders no
small homage to the man who, all his failures notwithstanding, did for
a time lift his country from the anarchy to which in his old age it
reverted. Sober reading in all conscience, but for the manner of the
writing one can have nothing but joyous praise.

* * * * *

His own modesty must preclude Mr. Punch from indicating those chapters
in _Soldier Men_ (LANE) that appear to him the most worthy of praise.
But of course, if you specially want to know, a glance at the
preliminary acknowledgments ... Anyhow, parental prejudice apart,
these studies of military life, mostly on the Egyptian Front, form a
sufficiently entertaining and interesting volume. In this war of many
fronts and facets, literature seems a little to have deserted the