LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume XL, Issue 205, 28 August 1909, Page 12

LITERARY.

Charles Rrag3ley's daughter, "Lucas Malet," has, after a period of non-pro-duction, again taken up her pen. A new novel, to be called "The Score," it coming from the press.

Mr George Moore is not to be deterred from tinkering with the books he hasalready published. He has prepared a new version of his novel "Sister Teresa," which will soon be issued.

The recent changes in the code of International Law arising from the action of the Hague Conference of 1907 are ema volume which is to be published soon in London. Its author, Dr. Baty, is a doctor in law of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin universities.

"Theodore Roosevelt, Dynamic Geographer," is the title of a volume which is coming from the Oxford Press. The author is Mr Frank Buffington Vrooman, F.R.G.S., and the book is based on a lecture which he recently delivered before the School of Geography at Oxford.

The English "Poetry Recital Society" has just brought out the first number of its journal. The leading principle of this society is that poetry is written, for sound rather than sight, and has to be communicated by inflection of voice, not by pantomime. Lady (Margaret Sackville, who is herself given to the writing of verse, is the president of the society.

In a forthcoming "Literary History of Rome" Professor J. W. Duff has undertaken to give a systematic account of literary movements and literary men in Rome from the middle of the third century before Christ to the end of the reign of Augustus. The early chapters, it is stated, deal with the origin of the Romans, the gro-wth of the language and the main aspeots of the Roman character.

Mr A. Maurice Low has been engaged for the last nine years in writing a book to which he has given the title of "The American People: A Study in National Psychology." It will be published in the autumn. Mr Low is alive to the folly of some of our foreign visitors who write books about America after a short sojourn; he says frankly that such a performance "should be regarded as a violation of international comity."

; A Tevised and enlarged edition of Messrs. Whitcombe and Tombs' New Zealand Customs Tariff has now been published. It is cross-indexed, showing preferential rates; it also includes Ministers' decisions, exchange tables, wine, spirit, and t°b»cco -duty-reckoners, and ullage tables. Interleaved pages, ruled, provide for notes. The work, in brief, is a complete compendium of information on all matters relating to tariff matters in the Dominion.

"Intensive farming implies the use of fertilisers; still more, it implies or should imply skill and knowledge in using them." The above sentence is from the pretace of a recently- published agricultural text book, "Fertilisers and Manures," by Mr. A. D. Hall, M.A., F.R.S., Director of the famous Rothamsted Experimental Station, which, for over sixty years, has been the headquarters in England of wel) organised and continuous experiments in the manuring of pastures and cereals. There is, as the gifted author points out,-no lack of books at the present time which will supply us with details of the origin and composition of fertilisers, but knowledge as to their mode of action and their relation to particular classes of soil is by no means so easily available. This knowledge Mr. Hall's latest work provides in an extremely interesting and practical manner, and as it is thoroughly up-to-date, comprising the ■ results of experiments carried out up to the close of last year, the reader has placed before him in a handy form the most advanced knowledge obtainable at Home in the Tapidly increasing field of agricultural research. The book is published by Mr. John. Murray, London.

"Life" for September contains a. description and picture of the new Jubilee Library building in Melbourne. The structure is practically a square, with aides of 220 feet. The octagonal reading-room, which is its main feature, has a diameter of 115 feet, and will seat 500 persons. It is lighted by a lantern 30 feet in diameter, besides 32 other skylights, and sixteen circular windows. The Library dome has an inscribed diameter of 115 feet, being slightly larger than the dome of St. Paul's Church, London. It will be constructed of Teinforced concrete, which also forms the material of the floors, and is used extensively in other parts of the building. The bookshelves in the readingroom are arranged on a series of galleries, accommodation being provided for 1,680,000 books. The room below the reading chamber will be used as a newspaper and map room. Below that again, in the basement, is storage space for a million books. The September issue of "Life" contains the usual notes on the world' 3 affairs, and a special resume of Australian politics. Dr. Fitchett's article on Australian bushranging this month deals with Morgan and Power.

Among the niany interesting features in the August "Windsor Magazine" is a finely illustrated article on "The Quest and Cull of the Orchid." The writer saye:—"Tho discovery of the Elephant Moth is an excellent example of what may be termed the 'romance' of orchidhunting. A German collector, passing up the deadly Fly Kiver in New Guinea, came suddenly upon a Papuan cemetery, where the huge crimson floral 'moths' crept and shivered amid the bones and skulls. Enthusiastic, the hunter would have run riot amid the glorious masses, but the savages menaced him with poisoned arrows, held at tense strings. They feared this disturbance of their ancestors' remains. They were won over, however, by presents of beads, brass wire, and calico, and even assisted in collecting the plants. But, lest the spirits of the°dead should resent the disturbance, the savages begged that a quaint little god be taken also by the collector; this idol was sold with the first consignment of Elephant Moth orchids at the auction rooms of Messrs. Protheroe and Morris in London. The specimen that attracted most attention was a plant, fairly blazing with blooms, that grew out of the eye socket of a human skull. This orchid was sold just as it was for £120." The August "Windsor" includes complete stories by Baroness yon Hutten, K. and Hesketh Prichard, A. G. Moberly and other favourite novelists, in addition to a large instalment of Max Pemtierton's picturesque new serial, "White Walls." The fine art feature of the number deals with the work of Mr. Rowland Wheelwright, and includes eleven admirable reproductions and • special frontispiece plate.

"Man and Master" is another of those mysteries of crtme and stories of detective astuteness for which Lawrence L. Lynch has established a reputation. A millionaire is found dead in bed, with an unfinished letter by Mβ side, indicating suicide. This theory neither his wife nor his sister accept, and they employ a secret service agent to investigate the case. His inquiries lead to some strange disclosures, involving the dead man's brother and his valet, and casting for a while a suspicion on his wife. Out of this tangle, the detective at last unravels the truth. The story is published by Ward, Lock, and Co., and we have received a copy through Wildman and Arey.

The Wordsworth Concordance, which has been prepared by forty collaborators under the direction of Prof. Lane Cooper of Cornell ia now finished. The text is based upon Mr. Thomas Hutchinson's Oxford edition, supplemented by those of Prof. Knight and Mr. Nowell Smith, and contains some 200,000 entries.

The promoters of the Byron Statue in Aberdeen have received £727 of the £1000 desired. It has been suggested that a granite statue should be erected in front of Marischal College, on the spot where the house stood ia which Byron passed his boyhood.

A curious book, "Les Riches," has just teen brought out in Paris by the Vleomto G. d'Avenel. He has long been a student of the part played by property in human life—as witness his former work, "The Mechanism of Modern Life." Of his new book the London "Timea" says: "He attempts to give a history ci wealth and what wealth has meant to it 3 possessors during the last seven hundred years j and he deale not only with the great fortunes of the Middle Ages, but with the more intricate questions of the salaries paid to public officials, and of the incomes earned by members of the learned professions, especially ot medicine. Some of the particulars Vicomte d'Avenal has been able to gather concerning the fees paid for operations are very strange indeed. For a comparatively slight operation performed on Louis XIV. in 1687 the surgeons —he had no fewer than four, including the famous Fagan—received £60,000. Yet another chapter is devoted to the earnings of the artists of the Middle Ages, including Durer, Rubens, Vandyck and Velasquez. A third of the 'book deals with the wealth of to-day, and here again Vicomte d'Avenal gives some curious and interesting particulars of the suras paid to the -workers in the great human hive, one whole chapter 'being devoted to the delicate question of literary emoluments, while yet another deals with the profits of dramatists and actors."

The "Book Monthly" passes on a warning to the researchers among old volumes. It has been diecovered that the ancient volume over which the researcher pores is full of germs, and you should not faco the tome without a eilk and wire mask to fit over the mouth and nose, Otherwise, the reader, as Hood write, will "find more dust within the heap than he'd contracted lor." The reading- mask is in use in Paris. But one awaits the fashion plate which will encourage the..ladies at .the British Museum with a, really fascinating mask. It should be nothing like the disguise of the motorist.

M. Celestin Derablon, a professor In Brussels, is sure that the productions of William Shakespeare were written by Roger Manners, fifth Earl of Rutland, and he has prepared a book which -will present his arguments at full length. The discovery at Belvoir Castle of a document in which Shakespeare and Burbage are mentioned is said to have put him on the track. He is confident, we are told, that Shakespeare was merely the cloak behind which the accomplished and much travelled young earl hid himself, and that the real share of Shakespeare was to serve aa a model

for Falstaff. AUSTRALIAN SOCIALISM.

By A. St. Ledger, Senator of the State of Queensland in the Commonwealth Parliament. Macmlllan and Co.; 4/6 net. This historical sketch of the origin and development of Australian Socialism is written by one who has been brought into close personal contact with the leaders of t/he movement, and has had exceptionally favourable opportunities for noting the growth of the collectivist sentiment among the masses of the people. The author endeavours to show: "(1) That Socialism received its original impulse in Australia through the powerful personality and brilliant propaganda of William Lane, a journalist in Queensland*; (2) that the original impulse and impress which he gave to the Labour party in Australia, of which, in the historic cense, 'he was the founder, were identical, on their economic side, with the Socialism of Continental Europe; (3) that the ideals of Bellamy, Marx, Engels, and of other European Socialistic writers, were, and are still, the ideals (now called the 'objective') of the Australian Labour party; (4) that the main work of the Labour party has been to profess this Socialistic gospel on the platform, and to suppress it in Parliament, in order to hold the balance of parties in every State House and in the Comm'onwealtli Parliament. In other words, that its parliamentary, as distinguished from its platform and special press campaigns, have been one long deception of the public."

The mast interesting chapters in the book are those which describe how Mr. W. Lane first galvanised into life and then fell out with the party he had created, because it was unprepared to accept as its public creed his thoroughgoing Socialist programme. His review of industrial legislation is distinctly tinged with bias, a fact that ie specially marked in his attitude towards compulsory Conciliation and Arbitration, which he declares "has ended in almost accepted failure." That, at least, is not true of New Zealand, and the fact that the Commonwealth has preserved the system shews that the statement is inaccurate as applied to Australia.

The author makes an effective attack upon the opposition of the Labour party to immigration. He shews that the total population 'in 15)00 of the three longestsettled States was 3,142,466, and of that number 1,240,840 were living in the three largest cities. Of the total population of Australia, about one and three-quarter million is found in the ten largest cities; or, roughly, a little less than sevensixteenths of the whole, while a small portion of Australia's population is spread, very sparsely, in infinitesimal nunvbers, over an immense area of 2,000,000 square miles of territory which requires development.

The took contains much valuable information, and historically may be taken as giving a fairly accurate account of ■the development of Australian Socialism and its present position. The appendices quote freely from public documents bearing on the subject,, - ,-. •' - -