'The Battle of Dorking.—Blackwood's Magazine for May has caused much angry excitement across the water. * * Occupying thirty-four pages, is a striking composition, 'The Battle of Dorking; Reminiscences of a Volunteer,' which may be said literally to have alarmed and annoyed John Bull. It is a well-told narrative, which reads like truth, purporting to be related, fifty years hence, by a grandfather, who had 'assisted,' as a Volunteer in the mock-review at Dorking, near London, in 1871. * * The veteran, supposed to talk to his grandchildren, A. D. 1921, traces England's decline, step by step; loss of India and of Canada; the establishment of Ireland as an independent country; the annexation of Holland and Denmark by Prussia; a war with Germany, commencing with the defeat of the British fleet, and ending with the invasion, conquest, plunder, and occupation of England; the future of the Bank of England; the West Indies taken by the United States; the loss of Australia; Gibraltar and Malta ceded to Germany, which becomes a great naval power; trade gone, factories silent, harbors empty, pauperism predominant; credit lost, and oppressive taxes levied by the conquerors. This, after all, is on the cards, and therefore the government journals, because of its truth, have bitterly denounced this remarkably outspoken article in Blackwood."—Press (Philadelphia), June 3d.
"'German Conquest of England in 1875 and Battle of Dorking; or, Reminiscences of a Volunteer,' originally published in Blackwood's Magazine, is now reprinted in pamphlet form, and has created as much sensation as did 'The Fight at Dame Europa's School.' It overleaps time, and is written in 1925. The author, talking to his grandchildren of events 'fifty years ago,' describes the arrival of the German armada, the destruction of the British fleet, the decisive battle of Dorking, capture of London, and total downfall of the British Empire, as happening in 1875. It must be of painful interest to English readers, for, as the Spectator acknowledges, 'it describes exactly what we all feel that under the circumstances Englishmen, if refused time to organize, would probably do.'"—Daily Chronicle (Washington, D.C.)
PORTER & COATES, Publishers, PHILADELPHIA.
