"Manchester Examiner," March 7.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 250, 21 October 1891, Page 7

"Manchester Examiner," March 7.

" A cryptogram from a dead hand indicating to a living friend a hidden treasure is not a new conception, but the present story derives some novelty from the manner of its narration, as well as from the circumstances that precede and accompany the discovery of the cryptogram. The action opens and closes in New Zealand, but the theatre of the main events is in Australia, and especially in Queensland. These events are somewhat of the 'Wild West' character, but they include, in addition to a pleasant tale of friendship rewarded and true love triumphant, some heartrending exposures of the sanguinary and tyrannical treatment nieted out to the aborigines by the European settlers. If what is here set down even remotely resembles the true state of affairs, the attention of the Colonial Secretary is urgently required. The hero bought o\it there a young attendant as he might have bought a portmanteau 5 he paid £2 for him. The story proper is agreeable enough in character, and Is told with warmth and animation, which, however, sometimes degenerates into a hilarious frothiness which defeats its own object. . . . The episode of Billy and the ' hatter' will raise up friends for the_ author, and it is not the only bit of exquisite writing -which this very unequal but very promising volume contains.