Books: Spiritualist Statesman

THE INCREDIBLE CANADIAN (454 pp.)—Bruce Hutchison — Longmans, Green ($5).

Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of Canada, sat down one day to thank the Greek city of Missolonghi—"where Byron once lived"—for naming a street after him. The draft returned from the typist with the phrase "where Byron loved." As King's pencil swiftly corrected it, he observed: "Perhaps he did, but we had better not say so."

Such primness characterized Bachelor King's whole public life. Only rarely did he make an open jest, as, when asked by an angry member of Parliament from the Doukhobor country what he would do if he faced a parade...

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