A VERY NAKED PEOPLE—Albert Londres—Liveright ($3).
Curious about international white slave traffic, Author Londres once lived with the traffickers, about whom he wrote The Road to Buenos Aires. His latest excursion—to Africa, through French Sudan, the High Volta, the Ivory Coast, Togoland, Dahomey, the Congo—disclosed a black slave traffic. The native African, says he, is a "banana engine" making the roads of a continent at the expense of his life. He may work a month on banana fuel, then find himself owing eleven francs because of huge taxes. Other Londres observations: 1) in French Africa a white man who strikes a black gets fined 25 francs; 2) native Africans practice true communism; 3) all Europe's old clothes and junk are sold to Africans; 4) the Negro is a football between African commerce and politics; 5) Senegalese World War veterans keep letters from French women addressed: "To my Mamadon! To my Sambo! To my dear black boy!"