AMONG THE BOOKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13456, 5 June 1907, Page 9

AMONG THE BOOKS.

|'Indiscreet Letters from Pekin" (Hurst and Blackett) tells -some terrible stories of the siege and sack of that city in 1900, and; amongst them this, on the credit of a member, of on© of the Legations, an amateur hangman, who undertook for the. love of the thing to execute all spies, etc. "Have you seen," he asked the-' writer of these letters, " the»wells near the Eastern Gates where all the women and girls have been jumping in? They are choked with women and young girls in their terror of the troops, especially of the black roops. Now they are hauling up the dead bodies so that the wells will not be poisoned. I have seen them- take six or seven bodies from one well, all clinging together."

Mr. Robert Hichens when the fever of writing seizes him goes to some quiet place, gives up all social engagements, and devotes his attention strictly to business. He is an early riser, and, as a rule, begins -work at seven o'clock in the morning. He stops for lunch, and begins again at -half-' past three, working till dinner time, but after dinner he lays aside the pen. Mr. Anthony Hope is seen about ten o'clock going .to the little room in Buckinghamstreet where: he does his writing. Mr. .Marion Crawford, . when lie is -in New? York, works;in a.- room ,fitted up •in the building occupied by his publishers. •