THE BOOKMAN

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 6, 8 January 1916, Page 16

THE BOOKMAN

American papers record that Mr. Charles Weegham, father of Mr. August Weegham, president of the Chicago Federal League "Baseball Club, had been for nearly fifty of his sixty-five years a hard-working blacksmith in Richmond, Indiana, when he was projected suddenly into a life of luxury and idleness. He became restless, and in a moment of despondency committed suicide at his son's residence in Chicago. His son, who had made a fortune in the restaurant business, thought his father should have a rest from toil, and prevailed upon him to come and live with him. Had the old man kept hammering at his anvil he would have been happier aad more contented.

It is reported that at a caucus of the Government members of the Manitoba Legislature in Winnipeg woman suffrage met with unanimous approval, and enabling legislation will be brought before the Legislature at- the ooming session to extend the franchise to women.

"The Future of Democracy." By H. H. .-" M. Hyndham. George Allen and TJnwin, Ltd., London; Students of the social and democratic problem will be interested in -this •volume of vigorous and lucid essays. They deal with the social and political forces of the day t the causes of the great war, and those which are working itowards the remodelling of society after it. Social-democracy in its relation to the war, to nationalism, and to peace; the socialism of the class-State; the question of armament, and the influence of the Marxian doctrine - upon the future are among the subjects. The essays are chiefly reprinted from tho Fortnightly Review and the English Review . "A War of Girls." By Vera G. Dwyer. Ward; Lock, and Co. Vera ■G. Dwyer, a young Australian authoress, who. has already written several interesting books for girls, including "With Beating Wings" and "Mona's Mystery Man," has produced another such book, entitled "A War of Girls," which is: as readable as its predecessors, and- should prove ' popular with young people. The story is none the ' less interesting in that a certain romance of "grown-ups'! is interwoven with, the adventures of childhood. The book is breezy from start to finish, and written" with humour If is illustrated throughout. "A Coaster's Freight." By R. J. Bakewell. New Plymouth .'• Thomas Avery- . ... This is a volume of verse on • many subjects, ranging from,"That Cigar" to "Der Tag," and "Summat" to "Armageddon," "The' Antarctic Heroes," and "The Social Democrats," "A Rum Yarn" and "Anathema Maranatha." The verse has not a master's touch, but it has a vigour and breezy vitality and colour which can appeal to many "The Man Who Bought London." By Edgar; Wallace. Ward, Lock, and ". Co. •■•■-'.■ Edgar Wallace, author of "People of the River" and ."Bones," has written another exciting and absorbing story in "The Man Who Bought London." The book deals with the highly romantic speculations of an American multi-mil-lionaire, King Kerry, who, with the aid of; his truly .enormous fortune, proceeds to buy up the slum areas and other portions of London. A powerful syndicate of . financiers unsuccessfully oppose him,'and he has a bitter private enemy in a mysterious person named Zeberlief. The book.also contains a.love-interest of more than ordinary charm. The plot is cleverly conceived and worked out, and its improbability is not one of the least of its charms. "The Man Who •Bought London" is a very readable romance. ■ . LITERARY NOTES. ' ■ Lafcadio Hearn'a Japanese writing* are not forgotten in Japan. "The ghost of Lafcadio Hearn has been awarded a Japanese decoration on the occasion of the Mikado's Coronation,". says the Pall Mall Gazette. "Hearn is still talked of among the Japanese as the one foreigner who knows them."

A critic in the-Nation pays this adjectival tribute to Mr. Harold Begbie's style. He speaks of "that inimitable style of hie, wise yet simple, simple yet strong, strong yet gentle , ' . that moving language ,for which Mr. Begbie. is so justly renowned—language purple' yet poignant, succulent yet sincere,- tympanic yet tearful, and'woolly yet wonderful." ; .

Mr. Alfred Ewen Fletcher, who was editor of the Daily. Chronicle from 1890 to 1895, is dead. He joined the staff as leaderrwriter in 1878. Under his editorship the Daily Chronicle became a great power. It was full of ideals. He made it a great literary journal, having a great belief that there was news in literature, in books. He was hinnself a writer of much distinction, and had considerable oratorical power

Mr. W. L. Phelps, in his new life of Browning, says:—"Browning's life," we are told, "was healthy, comfortable, and happy." And again: "No man, litffe or great, was ever more free from pose." He was "studiously normal." On this nleasant foundation of usualness in circumstance and. appearance, is built ' our interest in the man' himself, in his intensity of'nature,, his eager humanity, and the absorbed affection he lavished on all life—art, music, scholarship, romance, religion, personalities of every type, high or. low or merely commonplace—no matter what, so long as it was life. '. . .

■. M. Paul Mijouef, writing in the Athenaeum, from Petrograd, on the effect of the war on literature in Russia, says: — "I think English literary men know the catastrophic changes in the.periodical press of France occasioned by the war. Many, if not most, of the greater and smaller-reviews did not appear" for some time. The situation is not much changed even now. We have_ no disappearances of the- sort here in Russia in the World of the periodical press. All our1 periodicals, large and small, appear, and ha,ve appeared regularly enough—almosc as regularly1 as before the war. Our great monthly periodicals are the biggest in the world; they give at least twice as much printed matter as the Nineteenth Century, Fortr nightly Review, or even the English quarterlies. Some of them, almost all of them, are excellent. They differ also from the English reviews (Contemporary, National, etc.) in this circumstance, that thSy eive much space to fiction. The war diduiot make our larger reviews less big. less interesting, or less informative, arid; so far as I know, they have, not lost their readers or, subscribers'. Short serious pamphlets, destined for the common people and written by t competent men, practically do-non exist in Russia. Bnt there are signs that- the situation will soon be improved. A start has been made with translations of English and fin a less degree) French literature on the -war." . ■ . «