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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLIII, Issue XLIII, 5 March 1909, Page 1

Th.? greater part of the bean crop in. the Woodcnd district, .North Canter-' bury (says the Ashbnrton paper) are said to be over Bft. high this season. ''Several crops of potatoes have be■<>:n<; iilfi'i-trd with the blight lately and arc now being dug with, tho obi.c: of saving them," telegraphs the 'Fes! " Greytown correspondent. The New Zealand Gun Club Association has fixed this year's New Zealand Championship to "be fired at Am--berley about the middle of April. The oyster-bed storage trouble has, the Dunedin "Times" is advised, become acute at the Bluff. Two omcers from the Health Department spent last Thursaay noting the actual facts of the case at different stag?s of the tide. It is understood (writes oiif^onlemporary's informant), that they had no real fault to find, and some trifling boarding was all the change they recommended. The merchants themselves, however, are now determined to put an end to further doubt, and will forthwith complete arrangements for having the beds removed to a mid-channel bank, situated at least a mils and a-half from the wharf, higher Up the harbour. "In the Potter's House" : By George Eyre Eldredge. Doubleday, Page and Co., New York. — This is one of the most excellent books which the Americans are producing in quantities, and which teach us that British writers will have to fight for the bays. It is powerful without effort, restrained and simple, creating as strong an impression by what it does not tell as by what i( does, which i.s the true art ut' Letters. Barnaby, one of the leadin« characters, goes to a back-country village in Main.'', of prohibition fame, :o vi.'it an old mllei^e aooiuaintance. Sin:-.. .u Puia. Siniftiii is a Calvinistic miiii-lrc, and one of the most sell'-sat-isfii'tl of men. He condemns all who differ from him to hell, without a (|iiiver, and even his defence of a girl, who lias set herself on the penitent bench and is disowned therefore by her mother, is only due to her having "fulfilled the law." This girl, Amanda Seagrave, has a chequered career between Joe Ashgrave, the black sheep of the place, who is her lover, and whom sho subsequently marries, and Barnaby, whom she honestly and sincerely loves. Before his marriage Ashgrave nearly kills Barnaby, and hides him in an attic, and afterwards Ashgrave's farmhtuse is burned down, and* Ashgrave himself fatally injured by a ferocious mob, because boycotted by all the neighbours, he had insisted on employing a French-Canadian lad, who is a Roman Catholic. In the end Amanda marries Barnaby. The plot is a very fine one, in spite of incidental Haws, but the book is best in atmosphere and characters. It reflects the hard, embittered, hypocritical life of a Puritanic settlement, from which the fire of Puritanism has gone, leaving an empty husk that amazes the bumanelynvxlern Barnaby. Blanket, tho gossipping carrier, and the Widow Merlow, who eventually succeeded in capturing, him after he has taken 20 years to make up his mind, are characters that stand out among a host of creations.