Boy readers who followed with interest Dr. Francis Rolt-Wheeler's books in the United States Service Series, in which were told the adventures and experiences of a boy who followed the Geological Survey, the Foresters, the Census-takers, and the Fisheries will welcome the initial volume of a new series by the same author. "The Monster-Hunters" (Lothrop Lee & Shepard Company) carries its boy hero, Perry, in the companionship of real explorers and paleontologists, upon investigations of traces of long-extinct monsters-sea serpents, mastodons, dinosaurs and the rest. Dr. Rolt-Wheeler has a pleasant knack for blending adventure with information in his books, and the fifty or sixty illustrations, mostly drawn from the collections of the American Museum of Natural History, make the ancient monsters seem quite real.

Professor Edward S. Corwin's study of "French Policy and the American Alliance of 1778" (Princeton University Press) was prepared originally, in part at least, as a thesis for the doctorate of philosophy, at the universities of Michigan and Pennsylvania. But the interest thus awakened and the material assembled led to a considerable enlargement of the author's first plan, and the result is the present exhaustive consideration of the purposes which inspired France to ally herself with the American colonies in their struggle for independence. The subject, if not altogether new, is new in its point of view, and it is comprehensive in its method of treatment. Students alike of American and European history will find the work

illuminating in its presentation of conclusions from historical sources hitherto little regarded or inadequately treated.

Ser

Edward Morlae's "A Soldier of the Legion" (Houghton Mifflin Company) is a thrilling story of personal experiences in the fighting in France. geant Morlae was an officer in the Foreign Legion, that strangely amalgamated body, which includes men of all races and nationalities, Russians and Turks, Annamites and Hindus, Bulgars, Serbs, Greeks, Italians, and negroes, many of them adventurers, criminals and fugitives from justice, and with them a number of Americans who, like Sergeant Morlae, went out to help France fight her battles. The regiment to which Morlae belonged was reviewed by President Poincaré and General Joffre in August, 1915, after twelve months fighting, and presented with a battleflag. Two months later, all that was left of it was paraded through the streets of Paris, and its battleflag decorated with the Legion of Honor. The story which Sergeant Morlae tells in this book is that of the heroic fighting of this regiment in the forward movement of late September, 1915, when only 852 of the 3,200 who joined in the attack came out alive. The story is told without effusiveness, tersely, vividly, intimately; it is a human document of intense interest. There are four illustrations.

Few prefaces can ever have whet the appetite more than Jennette Lee's brief introduction to "The Symphony Play." It is given to few to announce the birth of a new art form, and the genealogy of

this one is particularly alluring. Just as in music the symphony developed out of sets and suites of short, comparatively unrelated pieces, so the symphony play has come to open a new and grander field to the one-act drama. And the time is ripe for it in the history of the drama, according to Mrs. Lee. The Greek play was "a sculpture-play, the dramatic embodiment of life, three dimensional and demanding a body in proportion to its soul"; "the Shakespearian play, a painting-play, a dramatic color-picture of life." And now comes "the new play that shall express our time- our nervous, quick, psychic, dramatic, deep-whirling soul-the play that like music shall express more than color or form or words, not the embodiment of life-but almost, as in Maeterlinck, the disembodiment-thin as a veil between two worlds." The four short plays themselves, Prelude, Allegro, Andante, and Allegretto, are naturally a little disappointing; yet they do call forth, from such human verities as boyhood, motherhood, friendship, and love, tones that sing like those of music, and one play echoes and completes another with beauty and mystery. And the reader who remembers "Pelleas and Melisande" will forgive any shortcomings he may detect and wait with interest for Opus 2. Charles Scribner's Sons.

...

Mr. DeAlva Stanwood Alexander's work on the "History and Procedure of the House of Representatives" (Houghton Mifflin Company) fills a place hitherto vacant in American political history, and fills it extremely well. The author has had not only the fruits of research to rely upon for his materials, but he was for fourteen years a member of Congress, and his personal experience of the powers and the procedure of the House adds vividness and flavor to his history. He describes minutely but without unnecessary detail the apportionment and qualification of members;

the organization; the powers of the Speaker, and their curtailment of late years, in the appointment of committees and in other particulars; the functions of floor leaders; the privileges of members; the creating and counting a quorum; the rules and the committee on rules; the order of business; the work of committees; the making of a law; the rules of debates; the decision of contested election cases; the course of impeachment proceedings; the relations of the President and the House, and much else besides. An appendix gives lists of Presidents and Vice Presidents and the Congresses coincident with their terms; speakers, clerks and sergeants-at-arms; doorkeepers and postmasters; "fathers" of the House; chairmen of the most important standing committees from date of formation; political divisions of the House of Representatives from 1789 to 1915; and apportionment of members by States; and a full index facilitates reference. This enumeration of the contents indicates the scope of the work, but conveys little idea of its flavor and the wealth of reminiscence and anecdote incorporated in it.

Under the title "Charles E. Hughes: The Statesman as Shown in the Opinions of the Jurist" (E. P. Dutton & Company), William L. Ransom, Justice of the City Court of New York, presents a study of the career of the Republican candidate for President, which is far enough from being the customary "campaign life," for it has been prepared without the knowledge of Mr. Hughes or the managers of his campaign, and it explicitly disclaims any intention of attempting to establish his qualifications for the Presidency. it reviews his work as a jurist; summarizes all of the opinions prepared by Justice Hughes; and quotes at length from those which deal with questions of national power and policy. Few

But

public servants perform their duties at a greater remove from "the madding crowd" than the Justices of the United States Supreme Court. It is only in exceptional cases or when there is a sharp division of opinion among the Justices that the average layman pays much attention to their deliverances; and it will surprise most readers to find that it takes more than sixty pages of the present volume merely to give a Table of the opinions, concurrent or dissenting, written by Justice Hughes during his six years on the bench. Aside from its immediate personal interest, this book is of value from the light which it throws upon the work of the Court. Even a layman will not find this illuminating summary of judicial opinions difficult reading; and, from the views expressed in them it is possible to forecast with some accuracy the national policies which Mr. Hughes would be likely to favor, if he were elected President.

Grace Sartwell Mason and John Northern Hilliard, joint authors of "Ysabel of the Blue Bird," once more collaborate in "The Golden Hope," a Californian story of gold hunting, irrigation, and their politics, and a new version of the old tale of the husband, the wife, and another. The supernumeraries of the drama, the Mexicans, Indians and "jayhawkers" of many classes are so clearly and strongly defined that their doings are as interesting as those of the principals, among whom must not be forgotten Abner Jackling and the Major. Abner is a landgrabber of the most pernicious species, the law-abiding. The Major keeps a hotel of sorts, presiding in the bar herself, and maintaining order among her guests by judiciously bestowed free drinks and by a general understanding of human nature, acquired in her husband's gambling room, and she differs from Jackling in her views

of Erich Wheat, the good genius of the community which treats him as good geniuses are always treated. His troubles refine his character, bringing out its best elements until he is more than worthy of the good fortune that comes to him at last, and lacks perfection only because he has not been able to carry out all his plans for improving the lot of his fellow citizens. The authors are to be congratulated on their escape from the danger of seeming to have had Bret Harte or Mr. Vachell in their minds while writing, and also on having revealed a new aspect of the Golden State. The East cannot learn too much of the Pacific Coast, or sympathize too profoundly with those who would fain see it at its best, and the novel is a far better vehicle for the conveyance of information to the world in general, than a serious book or the brilliant railway folder. The authors insert a few side-splitting anecdotes in the graver chapters, but the general effect of the novel is serious. D. Appleton and Company.

Persons so intensely American as to insist that fiction shall give Americans more serious treatment than they receive from the weather, the stock market, or any other force beyond their control, must avoid Mrs. Mary S. Watts's "The Rudder," for nearly all its characters are Americans,hyphenated or otherwise, and all are more or less absurd. The hero, a middle-aged minor poet is insignificant, socially and physically; his beloved is too unattractive to be sought, even by mercenary lovers, although her aspect is inoffensively doll-like. The scene is a placidly dull, ugly Western college town which carefully imitates an Eastern university seat, professes to be deeply interested in commencements and class days, and honestly reveres a Dean, perhaps because his title suggests official kinship

to a deacon. Mrs. Watts calls her book "A novel with several heroes," and leaves one to wonder upon which of her male characters she would bestow this honor. One, the big ice manufacturer, Amzik; two, his big son, a self-made professional baseball player; or the sturdy old contractor who sends his boy to college to become a cheap orator, ashamed of his father and mother and without one past hour of genuine thinking to fortify him for the crisis of his life, or the good old contractor himself with his mistaken ambitions? Upon the whole, one does not care. Mrs. Watts so skilfully sets the stage for the inter-play of their lives that their story commands unbroken attention, and are not all of us more or less absurd to our neighbors? If not, why the universal complaint of being misunderstood? If Mrs. Watts desired to convey this lesson she does it gently. The only person upon whom she has no mercy is the sentimental, selfish fool. To her, she is pitiless, and, nothing being so dangerous as a fool, the portrait of this woman may serve to warn those likely to be deceived by the apparent innocence of her like. The Macmillan Company.

Fenton Johnson's "Songs of the Soil," published by the author at 35 West 131st St., New York City, fill only a slender volume of forty pages, but there is more sincere feeling and real poetry in them than in many a volume of more impressive dimensions. Mr. Johnson is a negro, and he does not hesitate to use the negro dialect in most of these verses, though he discards dialect in poems of religious aspiration. Here is a characteristic bit from "Plantation Prayer":

No othah joy, O Lawd, but jes' to wu'k,

No othah joy but jes' to love mah folks,

To sweat an' toil beneaf de bi'lin sun An' in de ebenin' tell mah Chillun jokes.

No othah joy but jes' to read yo' Book By candlelight o' in de bright moonshine,

No othah joy but jes' to shout fu' You At Bethel's chu'ch 'way down be

hin' de pine.

And this, "Ah's Gwine Away": Daih's a lone stah in de sky, Ah's gwine away!

Daih's a road dat totes me high,
Ah's gwine away!

Loose yo' houn' dawgs on mah scent,
"Twill be foolish tahm you spent,
Ah am mighty tiahed of wu'k,
Gib to me a restful nu'k.

Ah's gwine away!

Daih's a song dat soothes mah breas'
Ah's gwine away!

Daih's a ha'p dat totes me res',
Ah's gwine away!

Nevahmo' to ten' de hoe an' plow,
Nevahmo' to ben' an' scrape an' bow.
Ah is gwine to sahve a king
Dat will allus let me sing.

Ah's gwine away!

The completion of one hundred years of activity in printing and distributing the Bible is fittingly commemorated in a 'Centennial History of the American Bible Society," by Henry Otis Dwight, Recording Secretary of the Society (The Macmillan Company). It is a volume of impressive size, and of unique interest; for the Society, uniting, as it does, representatives of all Protestant churches, and engaged in a worldwide work, has had many difficult questions to solve and has encountered many obstacles. Tact, energy and devotion go far to explain the extraordinary success which has attended its activities; and readers who open the book with only a languid interest in the subject will find their attention drawn on, from chapter to chapter, by the vivid and inspiring narrative.