T

HE record of the Indian Mutiny is one of the pages of history which few of us can read without a quickening of the pulses and a tightening at the throat. It is easy to see now that the English made many mistakes in their treatment of the natives, most of them due to that inability to put themselves in other people's places, which is the chief reason why they have always held their own. No matter how much we may learn about eastern castes and customs, it is hard for one of western blood to imagine that defilement worse than death may be firmly held to lurk in the chance contact of one healthy man with another, or even in the touching of a harm. less bit of animal flesh. Very probably the growing disaffection and dis

content throughout the northwestern provinces would have found some other pretext for an outbreak; but authorities agree that, if the native soldiers had not been required, through sheer official ignorance and obstinacy, to handle cart'ridges which they believed to be smeared with beef-tallow, the hideous tragedies of Cawnpore and Lucknow might have been averted.

Many narratives of the Mutiny have been written, some of which are extremely interesting, as, for instance, the Reminiscences of Sergeant Forbes Mitchell, published a couple of years ago; but Mrs.

MRS. FLORA ANNIE STEEL.

Steel's new novel is the best attempt made so far to weave fiction into the grim facts. It has been said that those who have lived through a great war in their own country, even if they were children while it went on, can never be quite the same as other people. To them the steady roll of a drum, the keen note of a bugle, the even tramp of men marching together, must always rouse that quick instinctive thrill of association which is quite distinct from will. In reading Mrs. Steel, we have the same sense of nearness and reality. Although she is not old enough to remember the events of which she

writes, she has lived where they took place, and has heard much about them from both sides. The opening chapter of the book shows at once the difference between East and West. On the grassy river-bank outside the city of Lucknow, the birds and beasts composing the menagerie of the lately deposed King of Oude are being sold by auction, and Major Erlton and little Mrs. Gissing stop as they ride by, to see the show. He buys a white cockatoo for her, in spite of the fierce competition of an old native priest, and she, out of sheer contrariety, insists on giving it to Mrs. Erlton, who drives past on her way to church. The bird, which appears often again in the story, has been taught to give a Mohammedan religious war cry, and the resentment for its loss which is felt by the old ascetic, who had only loaned it to the King, makes him hate the English tyrants even more than before.

The characters of Alice Gissing and Kate Erlton are admirably contrasted. At first one seems wholly admirable, and the other entirely the reverse, and yet, as the story develops, we are made to see that, noble as Mrs. Erlton is, she is also somewhat unsympathetic, and that Mrs. Gissing, with all her many faults, has a courage and generosity which in some degree atone for them. The peculiar recklessness which always seems to underlie the social life of Europeans in India is brought out with a light and sure touch, and also their clinging attachment to the far-away country which is always home. After the first few chapters the scene is shifted to Delhi and we are brought into the court of its old king, the last of the Moghuls, who is a mere tool in the hands of his unscrupulous wife and her follow

Prince Abool Bukr to the young widow, Newasi, does not seem consistent with what we have been told of oriental manners. It is, of course, perfectly natural that Mrs. Steel should want to show us a life of which she knows a good deal, and most of us absolutely nothing, but the way in which the eastern mind works must always remain inscrutable to the western intelligence. Many of the descriptions are extremely well done, as, for instance, that of a sort of pantomime miracle-play, which is one of the native amusements provided by Mrs. Erlton for a Christmas festival.

Any clever writer might be able to turn out good descriptions of Indian palaces, but no one to whom it had not been absolutely familiar could so reproduce this little scene of everyday life. But before long there is no more thought of merrymaking, and the shadow of tragedy fills all the stage, although in the end the characters in which we are meant to take most interest come out into the sunlight again. The account of the siege of Delhi is very good, and the author shows artistic. restraint in keeping the interest of the story there, instead of telling us what happened at Cawnpore and Lucknow, while the final assault has much more swing to it than we are accustomed to find in fights described by women. - The Critic.

I.

There was once a little animal, no bigger than a fox,

And on five toes he scampered over tertiary rocks.

They called him Eohippus, and they called

him very small,

And they thought him of no value when they thought of him at all;

For the lumpish Dinoceres and Coryphodant slow

Were the heavy aristocracy in the days of long ago.

Said the little Eohippus, "I am going to be a Horse!

And on my middle-finger-nails to run my earthly course!

I'm going to have a flowing tail! I'm going to have a mane!

I'm going to stand fourteen hands high on the psychozoic plain!"

The Coryphodant was horrified, and Dinoceras shocked;

And they chased young Eohippus, but he skipped away and mocked.

Then they laughed enormous laughter, and they groaned enormous groans, And they bade young Eohippus "Go and view his father's bones."

Said they, "You always were as low and small

There was once a Neolithic Man, an enterprising wight,

Who made his simple instruments unusually bright.

Unusually clever he, unusually brave,

And he sketched delightful mammoths on the border of his cave.

To his Neolithic neighbors who were startled and surprised,

Said he, "My friends, in course of time, we shall be civilized!

We are going to live in cities and build churches and make laws!

We are going to eat three times a day without the natural cause!

We're going to turn life upside down about a thing called Gold !

We're going to want the earth, and take as much as we can hold!

We're going to wear a pile of stuff outside our proper skins;

We're going to have Diseases! and Accomplishments!! and Sins!!!"

Then they all rose up in fury against this boastful friend;

For prehistoric patience comes quickly to an end. Said one, "This is chimerical! Utopian! absurd!"

Said another, "What a stupid life! Too dull, upon my word!"

Cried all, ،، Before such things can come, you idiotic child,

You must alter Human Nature!" and they all sat back and smiled.

Thought they, "An answer to that last it will be hard to find!"

It was a clinching argument-to the Neolithic Mind!

CHARLOTTE PARKINS STETSON.

Once there was a Public Library that long was small and poor;

That felt it was its duty deprivations to endure.

One day it felt within its shell the growing wings expand,

It heard the voice of Progress that echoed through the land.

It said, "I will no longer in this way be confined;

I am going to grow and carry food to every hungry mind.

I am going to be the brightest gem within the civic crown;

I am going to add new lustre to my city's fair

renown.

I am going to teach the young idea the straightest way to shoot;

To show the scientific man how next to evolute;

To gild the drudgery of all with fiction's magic page;

To give to all the lessons of every by-gone age; To sow in restless minds, where idleness but mischief breeds,

Of the Good, the True, the Beautiful, the fertile, springing seeds."

Of course some will be found to say, "One does not have to read;

Taxes already are too high, retrenchment 's what we need.

Although a dollar spent on you comes back a hundred-fold

In wiser men, in better laws, still-don't ask for our gold."

These might have passed for arguments in an unenlightened age,

But liberal St. Louis has surely passed that stage.

PICK-UPS.

TAKING THE CHANCES.-The General: "I've brought you a new book, Aunt Emily, by the new French Academician. I'm told it's very good, but I've not read it myself, so I'm not sure its quite-aquite correct, you know." Aunt Emily: Aunt Emily:

.

My dear boy, I'm ninety-six, and I'll risk it."—From Du Maurier's "English Society."

A SCOTCH visitor to the Carlyles in Cheyne Row was much struck with the sound-proof room which the sage had contrived for himself in the attic, lighted from the top, and where no sight or sound from the outside could penetrate. "My certes, this is fine," cried the old friend, with unconscious sarcasm. "Here ye may write and study all the rest of your life, and no human being be one bit the wiser."-Household Words.

ORDER LISTS AS THEY ARE SENT FROM

tralia and how much is the Price for every?"-Pub. Weekly.

EMILE ERCKMANN, the noted collaborator with Chatrian in many novels and plays, is not dead, as is generally supposed, but is living in retirement in the village of Luneville, near his native place. His 65th birthday was celebrated recently by the municipality. He is said to have a volume in press on a psychological subject.

THE following are among some books asked for by public library readers, taken from the librarian's record of queer blunders: Poetical Poems, by Lalla Roohk;" "Black Beauty, a little book by Zola;" "The Stinking Minister;" "The Stuck-up Minister;" "From Jessie to Ernest;" "A book describing place where they keep leopards on Sandwich Islands;" "Round the Red Lamp Chimney;" "Are there any Manxmans in?" "Dicken's Tootpick

Jerusalem, Palestine, Nov. 10, 1896, was recently received by a New York bookseller: "Dear Sir-I beg have you the kindness me to send one specification from your book couch at the same time me to communicate if you to possess or can procure the directory of America, Africa and Aus

iron is mined;" "Opening of the Chestnut (Burr);" "Abraham's Nights."-Lib. Journal.

FROM a sales catalog: Stirling, James H. Text-Book to Kant. The Critique of Poor Reason. 8vo. N. Y. 1882.-Lib. Journal.