REVIEWS.

Evening Star, Issue 4204, 17 August 1876, Page 3

REVIEWS.

The Young Surveyor, by J. T. Trowbridge, Reith and Wilkie, Dunedin.

This is a well-written story illustrative of a phase of American life. We need not describe the plot, which is, on the whole, simple enough and sufficiently interesting to lead both old and young to desire to learn the results to the different persons described. In the contrasts of character the chief charm of the work consists. There is nothing improbable in any of the incidents. They proceed naturally from the circumstances described, and might very easily happen to any similarly placed. To iis in New Zealand, the details of the story are comprehensible enough, for although there are wide differences between the modes of settlement here as compared with the United States, the resemblances are sufficient to lead to a thorough comprehension of a settler’s difficulties. The help that the educated and well trained can afford to those who are scarcely reconciled to roughing it, is well brought out. It is not really a love story, but has a higher aim than merely to tell a tale of overcoming impediments to a match. There are in it sketches of most loveable characters—high-minded, self-reliant, devoted to duty, and happy in its fulfilment amid much discouragement. There are snatches of science which point to the advantages of education and knowledge, and afford useful hints. It is, in fact, goodness taught by example, and the evils of ignorance and selfishness demonstrated. It has all the charm of a novel combined with the purest moral teaching, and is thus especially one of those works that youth may read with pleasure and profit.

Cookery for Invalids, by Mary Hooper. Keith and -Wilkie, Dunedin. Nurses and doctors are considered indispensable in administering to the sick, and no one would think of doing without their aid. To manage a sick room well and prescribe the proper medicines are two leading steps to recovery. But we venture to say that restoration to health depends as much upon preparation of food for an invalid as upon the comfort ot good nursing and the skilful prescriptions of a physician. Cookery books as a rule are clevoted to directions for the preparation of food for the healthy. They do not contemplate the modifications necessary to meet the altered conditions of impaired digestion and appetites that occasionally require to bo coaxed into taking sufficient nourishment, or give directions for supplying the largest amount of nutrition in the smalle t quantity of food. Miss or Mrs Hooper, for we do not know to which title she lays claim, has done good service in devoting the few pages of which her work consists to this overlooked branch of cookery. We have submitted her work to competent and experienced persons, and they unite in saying that the directions for the preparation of food for the sick and for children are well calculated to restore health to the invalid, and to preserve it when endangered.