Mr. JOHN HARGRAVE, the author and illustrator of _The Great War Brings It Home_ (CONSTABLE) has already a wide reputation in the world of Scouts, gained not only by his enthusiasm but by his profound knowledge of scout-craft. Here he tells us very plainly that the War has brought home to us the fact that, if we are to make good our losses in the ranks of the young and the fit, we have got to give our children a better chance of living healthy, wholesome lives. He urges the need of more outdoor education and as many open-air camps as possible, and shows that, if we are to carry out such a scheme as he lays in detail before us, scoutmasters and still more scoutmasters are wanted. With reason he complains that none of these good fellows is paid one halfpenny, and that nearly all of them are young men who have to get a living. "Offer them," he says, "a living wage and how gladly would they become national scoutmasters in charge of national camps." You may, if you are on the look-out for it, find much that will seem fantastic in Mr. HARGRAVE'S ideas; his appeal, however, is not to those of us who, even in a case of great national urgency, cannot get away from the tyranny of convention. Intrinsically his idea is sound, and I plead with all my heart for a fair consideration of his schemes and for help in their development. * * * * * Mr. REX BEACH is one of the few prolific writers whose stories increase in power as they increase in number, and this though they are essentially novels of action rather than novels of thought. Of his latest effort, _The Winds of Chance_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), one may say that there is not a tedious page in it. The scene is laid in Yukon, a very vortex of life and colour and excitement in fiction, whatever it may seem to the actual inhabitants. The true hero of the story, _Napoleon Doret_, the French voyageur, wins his heart's desire in the end and we breathe a sigh of relief. The other hero is left the accepted swain of the daughter of the Colonel of the North-West Mounted Police at Dawson, and this we find a little hard to swallow, seeing what shady, not to say immoral, company, male and female, he had just been basking in. He is a weak creature and certainly should have married the _Countess Courteau_, an Amazonian lady, who would have kept him in order. But that is to be fastidious. The story is crisp and vivid, and, anyway, those ancient prospectors, _Tom Linton_ and _Jerry McQuirk_, are worth twice the money. * * * * * Mr. Punch has great pleasure in commending to his readers two volumes of verse--_Rhymes of the Red Ensign_ (HODDER AND STOUGHTON), by Miss C. FOX SMITH, and _The Poets in Picardy_ (MURRAY), by Major E. DE STEIN--in which they will recognise many poems that have appeared in his pages. * * * * *