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but my mule took devious paths across the hills both by land and water, and slipped a thousand times on the stones in the long descent to Tangiers. was a joy, this night of all nights, to scent again the aromatic fragrance of the gardens on the slope, and to welcome the few glimmering lamps that starred the violet masses of the town. What followed on the Delhi is not within my experience, and if told at length must be told elsewhere. The Gibraltar lifeboat, brought over by one of the battleships, took off three loads of passengers and then incontinently foundered on the beach and was broken to pieces. In all some thirteen ship's boats shared this humiliating fate.

The military rocket party from Gibraltar reached the wreck in the late afternoon, but could make no connection with the ship till next morning. Twelve passengers spent another night on board, and had to make their perilous escape by the breeches buoy.

Unimaginative persons reading these details of rescue, and wise after the event, may say how much more simThe Pall Mall Magazine.

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ple to have stayed on board until both wind and sea had fallen. The answer to that is the fact that both the British and French naval authorities and the officers of the Delhi were in fevered anxiety to get the passengers off. her precarious hold of the sandbank, lying on her side, with the Atlantic waves beating upon her, the Delhi at any moment might have tumbled into deep water. Had any breach been made in her plates she would have instantly filled and "turned turtle."

As it happened the sea played another game with her. During the first forty-eight hours it drove her fifty feet further up on the bank and sunk her six feet deeper into the sand. Since then, with the exception of an Elysian calm of two days, when much of value was got out of her, the Fates have been unkind. Her back is broken; the water is rising in her hold; the sand is covering her. Her skeleton may lie there for years, a monument of human fallibility, but she will sail no more. Another stately vessel has gone to the port whence no ship returns. George R.

Halkett.

"The Red Swan's Neck," by David Reed Miller, is a tale of the North Carolina mountains during the Civil War and the period immediately following. The book is full of dialect, picturesque characters, quaint usages and interesting superstitions. The fine points of conviction and principle involved in the Rebellion hardly reached many faraway communities, while primitive passions and the instinct for fighting were easily roused. This story shows how little the ethics of the situation were considered. In the development of Gyp Stybright the author has attempted to make real the character of a sensitive, high-spirited mountain boy, and

succeeds in a degree. The descriptions of places in North Carolina and Florida are interesting. Sherman, French Co.

To their "Child's Guide Series" the Baker & Taylor Company adds "A Child's Guide to the Bible" by George Hodges D.D. It is simply and clearly written, and well adapted to the purpose in view. A brief account is first given of the making of the Bible, the books of prose and poetry which compose it, and the different translations, all this as a preface to a compact and readable summary of Old and New Testament history. The sketch of Old

Testament history is especially useful, because it brings into their historical sequence events and persons from widely separated narratives. Ten reproductions of famous pictures illustrate the book.

To the series of volumes on the Arts and Crafts of the Nations has been added one on "The Arts and Crafts of Our Teutonic Forefathers" by Professor G. Baldwin Brown of Edinburgh. (A. C. McClurg & Co.) The author's aim in the series of lectures which go to the making of this volume, is, as he explains in his preface. to give a general introduction to the study, and then to direct attention to the cemeteries in which most of the artistic remains of the Teutonic tribes have come to light, and after describing and apportioning them among the different branches of the Teutonic race to survey the different classes of objects and describe them in detail. The book is one in which antiquarians will take delight, and 130 illustrations and numerous maps enhance its value.

The cock-sureness of Charles Darwin and his immediate followers is being distinctly lessened as writers, holding hard to his school, begin to see difficulties and even impossibilities where he saw none. "Plant Life and Evolution" by Douglas Houghton Campbell holds a more tentative view of matters evolutionary than any that the last generation saw promulgated. The very fury of the onslaught on Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, made candor or concession out of the question. But Prof. Campbell, addressing a world only too ready to go the whole distance with him, pauses to say now and again, "We don't know. This theory has yet to be proven." The book is written not only for the student but also for the amateur and therefore, while profound and comprehensive, is also readable and arranged

with unusual simplicity of purpose and logical order. Henry Holt and Company.

"The Truth about Chickamauga," by Archibald Gracie, is an exhaustive study of that famous battle. The author opposes the position held by the promoters of the Chickamauga National Park, and considers that up to this time the history of the battle has been falsified. Mr. Gracie asserts that the well known halt in the Confederate pursuit, was, from a military standpoint, one of the most stupendous blunders of the war, and that the battle of Chickamauga might easily have been one of the most decisive instead of having its outcome debatable even to the present day. As authorities, Mr. Gracie has studied the official War Records, both Union and Confederate, and has corresponded with many survivors of the war. To one who is interested in military matters, or who is familiar with the regiments from nineteen different states which were engaged in the battle, the book will be of great moment. The value of the book is increased by nine maps, over 100 portraits of Federal officers, and four views of the battlefield. Houghton Mifflin Co.

How any writer could manage to compress so many facts into the limits of 373 pages is the first wonder confronting the man who reads "Social Pathology" by Samuel George Smith, Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota. The central doctrine of this book is that both society and the individual are dominated by psychical influences; but that doctrine does not pisy a really important role beyond a few chapters. The writer at all times is aware of its truth and assumes that the reader has gone with him to the extent of accepting it as a theory proved; but he examines and explains

Af

the statistics and facts before him from every possible angle of reflection. He is a historian, a slum-worker, a student of statistics, a philosopher on life, and he brings his vari-colored personality to play on all the sociological facts and theories he marshals into view. And he covers his ground thoroughly. ter a brief and not unusual introduction he plunges into the study of poverty as related to labor, charity, the Church, the city, the family; then hurries on to examine crime, its pathology, its economic curse, its treatment. in treating crime he studies its relation to all physical infirmities and then goes on to study those infirmities themselves. There isn't a present-day movement along social lines neglected; from prohibition to heredity he gives a word to all. The book is modern, sound, sensible, progressive, interesting, and packed with facts. The Macmillan Co.

And

One turns with curious interest, not to say surprise, to a book which, within the narrow compass of about 250 modest pages, attempts to follow the course and estimate the qualities of modern English literature from the Renaissance to the present,-from Sir Thomas More, Tindall, and Roger Ascham to Browning and Tennyson, Dickens and Thackeray, Hardy, Kipling, Yeats and Synge. Yet, as one reads G. H. Mair's "English Literature: Modern" in the Home University Library of which Henry Holt & Co. are the American publishers, one is amazed by the skill with which the work is done, the admirable sense of proportion and selection of subject, the justness of estimate, the graphic interest and the charm of style. The book is one of the most noteworthy of a very noteworthy series. An experiment in condensation scarcely less remarkable is the "History of Our Time (18851911)" by G. P. Gooch, which appears in the same series. Here the author

confronted the problem of compressing the story of world-events during one of the most stirring and transforming quarters of a century in the world's history,-in Great Britain and France, Germany and Russia, the Latin South, Austria-Hungary, and Eastern Europe, and to describe the awakening of Asia, the partition of Africa, and the political and other history of the United States, adding a hasty survey of present world-problems; and he achieves the task surprisingly well. The history is, of course, only an outline; but it serves a highly useful purpose in refreshing the memory, and in exhibiting the true relation of events, and the currents and eddies of international politics. It is impartial in temper and lucid in style.

From year to year valuable additions are being made to the series published by the J. B. Lippincott Co., the "True" Biographies and Histories. The latest volume is one by Sydney George Fisher, entitled, "The True Daniel Webster." As in the others of the series, the effort has been made here to clear away the mist of tradition, and to present only such facts as can be proven authentic. About almost no public man has there been such a variety of opinion as about Daniel Webster. Acknowledged as one of the greatest intellects of all time, he was regarded as an apostate by the contemporary literary men of New England, and this fact in itself has done not a little to fasten to his name a vast amount both of blame and interest. The present biographer takes neither the position of hero worshipper, nor of the one who finds nothing worthy in the character of Webster. He carefully and logically clears Webster's name from much of the blame usually attached to it by showing that many things which have been warped into the magnitude of vices, were char

acteristic of all men in Webster's time. He also shows conclusively that all the worst charges brought against Webster can be traced to his enemies, the abolitionists. Webster's position in regard to the question of slavery is believed by the author to have been the result of profound conviction. We are prone to forget that affairs in 1850, when Webster made his famous Seventh of March Speech were far different from what they became in 1862. Mr. Fisher shows us how parallel were the ideas of Lincoln and Webster regarding the Constitution. As to the bulk of legends which surround Webster's early life, the author shatters many a pretty tale, but from the debris we gather a comprehension of a much finer and more likable figure than that of the legends. In addition to its spirit of zeal after the truth, the book possesses great charm of manner, and is most readable.

In the story of "Christopher" (Houghton Mifflin Co.) American readers make the acquaintance of an author, Richard Pryce, whom they will be inclined to reckon nearly as great a discovery as William De Morgan or Ian Hay. Between Mr. Pryce and Mr. De Morgan, there are indeed close resemblances of style and method; but, although there are whole paragraphs, if not whole pages in "Christopher" which might have come bodily from one of De Morgan's books, Mr. Pryce, leisurely though he may be, is never tedious, as De Morgan undeniably sometimes is, and he has, moreover, a flavor quite his own. Also, he does not play with the supernatural, as De Morgan does. The story of Christopher begins on mid-ocean, where he is born.

The scene shifts to London, and then to Boulogne. The war between France and Germany is on, and the billeting of French recruits upon the young English widow, Christopher's mother, gives the little lad a new interest and makes for him new friends. Mr. Pryce has the happy faculty of making even his minor characters very much alive. Pierre and Jean, Celéstine and Amélie, and above all, the faithful Trimmer, maid, nurse and devoted attendant of Christopher's mother and the boy, are sketched with delightful humor and naturalness. The first Book is taken up with Christopher's boyhood and his mother's second romance; the second with the entanglements of his own romance. What happens with this it would be an unkindness to the reader to disclose; but it may be permitted to guess that most readers will find the first Book more enjoyable than the second, though the second is in a way more appealing in its treatment of the great problems of life, the unfolding of character and the working out of heredity. Mr. Pryce has the superficial attractions of style; he has abounding humor, as well as true sentiment; but the qualities which make the book thoroughly worth while,-one of the best worth while within a twelvemonth -are not in the least superficial, but are wrought in the very fibre of the story. It may be said of this book, as might have been said of Mr. Harrison's "Queed," that whoever reads the first chapter will read the book to the end; and also, that whoever reads the book through to the end will look with eager anticipation and assured confidence for whatever else may come from the same pen.