ed that they shall not endure a worse penalty for
attempted escape. At present prisons are as necessary to the State as
milk is to a baby; the thing against them is that they turn criminal men
into criminal devils.

At his home in Beaconsfield, Chesterton has a wonderful toy theatre. He
writes in this book a sketch about it. This toy theatre has a certain
philosophy. 'It can produce large events in a small space; it could
represent the earthquake in Jamaica or the Day of Judgment.' We must
take Chesterton's word for it. I am not convinced that the toy theatre
of Chesterton has added to philosophy; I don't think it has made any
remarkable contribution to thought, nor is it, as he claims, more
interesting and better than a West-end theatre; but I do believe that in
having amused a few hundred children it has a place in the Book of
Life--perhaps near the name of Santa Claus.

While it is true that 'Tremendous Trifles' is not nearly as important as
some of the Chesterton books, it is true to say that it is a remarkably
pleasant book about small things that are really tremendous when we come
to study them.

* * * * *

'The Defendant' is, as the title suggests, a defence of all kinds of
things that are usually attacked by other people.

It takes a brave man to defend 'penny dreadfuls.' Chesterton assumes
this role. He defends them on their remarkable powers of imagination.
One has only to study Sexton Blake to discover the intricate psychology
of that wondrous personality who can solve the foulest murder or unravel
stories that the divorce courts would quail before.

There is something to be said for the skeleton so long as he doesn't
come out of his cupboard. Chesterton defends skeletons. 'The truth is
that man's horror of the skeleton is not horror of death at all; it is
that the skeleton reminds him that his appearance is shamelessly
grotesque.' But he sees no objection to this at all. After all, he says,
the frog and the hippopotamus are happy. Why, then, should man dislike
it that his anatomy without flesh is inelegant?

It is to be expected that Chesterton would write a defence of baby
worship, because they are so 'very serious and in consequence very
happy.' 'The humorous look of children is perhaps the most endearing of
all the bonds that hold the Cosmos together.' Probably we are all agreed
that the defence of baby worship is a desirable thing; possibly it is
the only poi