436
McClure's Magazine, with a stirring barrackroom ballad by Kipling, a thrilling installment of An thony Hope's "Phroso,"a dramatic sea-story by an actual sailor, and characteristic stories by Mrs. Spofford and Clinton Ross, maintains, in the September number, its usual enticing aspect. In scanning a table of contents of McClure's, one never experi ences, it must be allowed, the familiar difficulty of finding something one really cares to read.
ing his clients how they may commit the most flagrant wrongs, and yet through the technicalities of the law escape the slightest punishment. It may be objected that the writer has prepared a text-book for shrewd knaves, but his answer is that if he instructs the ene mies, he also warns the friends of law and order. The stories are admirably well written, and one will not lay the volume down until he has reached the end. miscellaneous.
Tom Sawyer, Detective, Mark Twain's latest story, is finished in the September Harper's in a generous installment, embellished with eleven illustra tions by A. B. Frost. This dramatic story of life in the middle West, a generation ago, seems likely to add to the reputation of even so famous a personage as Mr. Clemens's well-known hero.
The North American Review for September opens with a most interesting paper by His Exellency, Sir Alfred Moloney, Governor of British Hon duras, entitled " From a Silver to a Gold Standard in British Honduras," wherein is described a financial transaction unique in the history of currency, and the material benefits derived from an establishment of a country upon a gold basis. Justin McCarthy, M. P., contributes a most entertaining account of • The Late Session of Parliament." Mr. McCarthy gives a remarkably clear insight into English politics as they exist to-day, and points out the internal elements of discord corroding the strength of the government.
Where the Atlantic meets the Land. By Caldwell Lipsett. Roberts Brothers, Boston, 1896. Cloth. I1.00. This collection of stories, Irish in scene and char acter, will serve to while away a leisure hour most agreeably. The author displays much versatility, and no little dramatic power. The volume contains sixteen sketches, all of them well worth reading. In Scarlet and Grey. By Florence Henniker. Roberts Brothers, Boston, 1896. Cloth. $1.00. These stories of soldiers and others are delight fully written, and form one of the best collections of short tales that we have read for a long time. The stories are all wonderfully well told, displaying much power and pathos on the author's part. Old Colony Days. Roberts
Brothers,
By Mary Alden Ward. Boston,
1896.
Cloth.
S1. 25. BOOK NOTICES. LAW.
The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason. By Melville D. Post. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1896. Cloth. Mr. Post has hit upon a most ingenious scheme for enlisting the reader's interest in legal matters, and these stories are quite as absorbing as any detective tales. Randolph Mason, a shrewd but unscrupulous fawyer, devotes his great abilities to the task of show
Mrs. Ward, in a series of most readable sketches, brings forward, for our better acquaintance, some of the old Colony days' worthies: Governor William Bradford, whom she styles, " The Father of Ameri can History"; Cotton and Increase Mather, the "Early Autocrats of New England "; and that " Oldtime Magistrate," Samuel Sewall, whose "Diary" has stood the test of years. There are also sketches entitled, " Some Delusions of our Forefathers." and "A Group of Puritan Poets." The book is one of great interest, and contains much valuable informa tion.
