Page 16 Advertisements Column 2

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 16, 9 August 1889, Page 16

pBICKETEBS 1 ARMS HOTEL, Corner of Tory and Vivian Streets, WELLINGTON.

MAURICE CRONIN. late of West Coast, has just taken over the well-known Cricketers' Arms Hotel, where he intends conducting business iv First-class Btyle. Tbe Best Accommodation provided. for Patrons. The Liquors kept in stock are of the Best Brands. p A Good Billiard Table. Night Porter specially engaged. ' Trams and 'Busses pass every ten minutes. MAURICE CRONIN ... ... Proprietor.

THE MYSTERY OF THE FORECASTLE Or, A Restless Heart. (Obristchurch Telegraph, July 23.) The articles which, in the shape of colonial stories, are from time to time put in the literary market, are not generally of a kind to warrant novel readers to commence the perusal of a colonial story with very pleasurable anticipations. As a rule, the plots are flimsy, the characters unreal, the dialogue dull, the "padding" pointless, and the literary style about as bad as it well could be. Among the difficulties with which our young writers seem unable to grapple are those of telliog a story naturally, and of making the characters appear upon the scenes in the roles of living people, and not as mere pegs upon which to hang scraps of stiff dialogue. The authoress of a little book, entitled " Ihe Mystery of the Forecastle," recently published in Dunedin, appears to have got fairly over these stumbling blocks, and tells her story so brightly and well as to dispel, to some extent, one's well-merited prejudice against colonial novels. Bachael "V. MacDherson, cf Oamaru, is the name of the lady who, in •' The Mystery of the Forecastle," seeks to woo the favour of the literary public of New Zealand. The incidents of ihe narrative mainly take place on board of the '• Waratera,'' which is a transposition of the name of a favourite boat belonging to the Union Company. The " Waratera " is on a tiip to Melbourne, and among her passengers is the heroine or central figure of the story — Ruth Lancaster. Around Ruth are grouped a number of characters who, in a very natural manner, strut and fret their huur upon the stage created for them by their author. Mrs. Lancaster's own story is the old one of a bright, clever woman married to a worthless husband. Interwoven with tbat history are the hopes, and fears, and troubles, and loves of a number of the persons with whom she rinds herself a fellow-passenger on her holiday trip to the Melbourne Exhibition, The destinies of these subsidiary characters are skilfully worked out to the usual happy ending which nearly all novel-writers reserve for their tried and true lovers in the third volume. Mrs. Macpherson's description of life on board the steamer, especially in steerage quarters, is realistic, and shows that she is a pretty close observer of what goes on around her. The story is, as we have said, bright and racy, and much above the average colonial fiction ; but we think that in the denouement the authoress does not show an artistic skill. The iacidents of the story are so well strung together, and the interest is so well preserved throughout, that it is a pity they did not lead up to a more telling climax. The bursting out of his cage of an imprisoned lion in the Melbourne Gardens, and his killing of the erring but repentant husband before the eyes of his relenting wife, is startliog enough, but it is not probable, and it does not fit in its place. A mysterious murder, or a pathetic suicide, though perhaps a more commonplace way of putting the selfish husband off the world's stage, would have had a stronger air of reality about it. Possibly, however, Mrs. Macpherson may have considered a "header "off a bridge, or a stab under the fifth rib to be stale methods of disposing of characters which h?d to die, and resolved upon inventing something new. Perhaps she was right. The dagger and the dark flowing river, as dramatic '" properties." have been done to death. At all events the lion did the work effectually, and even if he had not himself been shot at the time, there would have been no possibility cf arraigning him before a jury, or working up criminal evidence against him, so after all there is something to be said in favour of the lion. At least readers of Miss Braddon's novels ought to think so, for they must be heartily tired of reading of how the guilt of the inevitable deed of blood pets fixed on the proper person. If Mrs. Macpherbon continue to Mrite novels, can keep up the same racy style, pnd leave certain crudities hebini hci, she ought to be able to make for herself a name in New Zealand literature, for sho describes persons and things uncommonly well. The book is neatly got up, and is printed in good, cli-ar type. — To be bad of all booksellers. /LALLAN AND GALLAWAY SOLICITORS Jetty Stbeet, Dunedin, Have Sectionß for Bale in South Dunedin en Easy Terms, and Money to Lend to build thereon.