Henry Bourland. By Albert Elmer Hancock. York: The Macmillan Co., 1901. 66 New has a sweet voice and merry laugh, and is as unlike the accepted orthodox type of authoress as can well be." In this excellent novel, whose sub-title is The Passing of the Cavalier," Mr. Hancock depicts the life of one Henry Bourland, the son of a long line of proud southerners. Young Bourland goes to war as a Confederate officer, is wounded, taken prisoner, nursed back to health by a northern girl, whom he marries later, and returns to find his parents dead, his home wrecked and his estate dwindling away. A few years of hopeless struggle, of heartbreaking political fight in which sectional patriotism drives the man of honor into the use of dishonorable means to further his end, and circumstances lend color to the calumny of his personal character, which leads him into the very fault he at first strenuously denies, the taking of another wife-break the proud man in body and soul, and he gives up the struggle in despair. For a new writer and we take it for granted this is Mr. Hancock's first work of fiction the production of Henry Bourland is an achievement quite remarkable. He not only shows power as a writer, but his sense of proportion is excellent. and he has mastered the art of holding the reader's interest from the first. Henry Bourland is emphatically worth reading. Literary Notes. And now Laurence Housman explicitly denies that he wrote "An Englishwoman's Love Letters." Morgan Robertson's story "Masters of Men," now running in "The Saturday Evening Post," of Philadelphia, will be presented in book form by Doubleday, Page & Co. Maurice Hewlett, the novelist, has given up his post in the British civil service in order to devote himself entirely to literature. He is at present engaged upon a short story. The scene of Ellis Meredith's forthcoming story, "The Master-Knot of Human Fate," is laid at Crystal Park, near Manitou, Colorado, and about ten miles from Colorado Springs. The park belongs to Colonel Hay, who did most of the work on his "Life of Lincoln" there. With its issue of April eighteenth the "Youth's Companion" entered upon its seventy-fifth year. To celebrate this event, the "Companion" of that date use a double "seventy-fifth birthday number," containing contributions by the vice-president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt; Mary E. Wilkins, Sarah Barnwell Elliott and half a dozen others. In a recent bout with Mr. Irving Bacheller on the relative merits of the romanticist and the realist, Miss Bertha Runkle championed the former by declaring that "it is far easier to observe than to imagine; observation means eyes in the head, imagination means eyes in the soul." The Century Company publishes Miss Runkle's romance, “The Helmet of Navarre," on the 1st of May. "Warwick of the Knobes," a new novel by John Uri Lloyd, will run as a serial in The Bookman, beginning in the May number of that periodical. The alternate weakness and strength of Mr. Lloyd's Stringtown on the Pike" puzzled many critics in their efforts to determine the literary level of the author, but the book has had a popular success, which prepares a way for the forthcoming work. "Elder Boisc," the new novel by Everett T. Tomlinson, which Messrs. Doubleday, Page & Company will publish in May, threatens to add another to the types in literature which stand as exponents of a genial and shrewd philosophy. We are told that the character who gives the title to Mr. Tomlinson's volume is a "very living human being whose oddities of character supply an unfailing note of humor." In her book on "Flowers and Ferns in Their Haunts," Mrs. Mabel Osgood Wright has treated her subjects in their relation to the landscape and the whole is bound together by a thread of narrative. The illustrations consist of fifty full-page plates of the flowers and ferns as they grow by the river side, in woods and along roadsides; together with over one hundred cuts in text made direct from flower photographs. These photographs were taken at close range and the result is unique with its intimate glimpses of nature. Sir Thomas Lipton, K. C. V. O., has written especially for The Saturday Evening Post, of May eleventh, an article on The Sports that Make the Man. He places yachting high on the lists, and gives some interesting anecdotes of his own career as an amateur yachtsman. Sir Thomas is hopeful, if not confident of “lifting” the America's Cup next autumn. He says, however, that if it were a certainty he would not cross the water; for there is no sporting interest in sure things." This article will appear exclusively in The Saturday Evening Post, of Philadelphia. Paul Laurence Dunbar's new novel, "The Sport of the Gods," is published entire in a "New" Lippincott Magazine. This is by far the strongest Public curiosity may be satified with regard to and best fiction from a pen noted for its humor and the personal appearance of Miss Corelli, by reading pathos. As "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in its day held this recent description: "She is petite and daintily the reader captive, so does this novel of the new proportioned, her hair is of a natural golden shade negro, enfranchised, but still a charge upon our and curls in masses over her head; her complexion consciences. Opening with a false arrest, trial is exquisite, and her eyes of deep gray-blue. She so-called- and conviction in a southern town, the tale shifts to New York. Here the writer speaks secretary and authorized biographer; the Right from the heart when he says of the southern negroes Hon. John Morley, whose "Oliver Cromwell" is who come North seeking their fortunes: "It was still on every tongue; the Right Hon. James Bryce, better for them to sing to God across the southern biographer of Mr. Gladstone; the Hon. Oscar fields." In the cases of Joe Hamilton and his pretty Straus, ex-minister to Turkey and biographer of sister, Kitty, this was undeniably the truth. Roger Williams; Joel Chandler Harris and Harry Towards the end a "yellow" journal reporter dis- Stillwell Edwards, the Georgia storytellers; David covers the secret of the early arrest. His acumen Gray, author of "Gallops;" Tudor Jenks, author not only brings glory to his paper, but reunites of "Imaginations; " Prof. Brander Matthews; Irwin those with whom the "gods" have been "sporting." Russell, the poet; Maurice Thompson, whose latest published book is the "Winter Garden" group of Mr. J. A. Altsheler, who is one of the best among our writers of American historical fiction, has writ- essays and sketches; and Prof. Theodore S. Woolten a romance of early expansion in "The Wilder- sey, author of America's "Foreign Policy." Gen. ness Road," which Messrs. D. Appleton & Com- Schofield, author of "Forty-six Years in the Army,” made a special study of the law after leaving West pany will publish at once. The plot of the story is Point. based on St. Clair's defeat and Wayne's victory, and the hero, a soldier with a history, plays a part with St. Clair not unlike that which Washington acted with Braddock. Mr. Altsheler's novel of the civil war, "In Circling Camps," is enjoying a large sale and is just going into another edition. A contemporary is a trifle misleading in its report on Mr. Charles Major's forthcoming book, "The Bears of Blue River." In the first place, this will be the third and not the second work of the author, the second being a novel of Puritan and Cavalier in old England, entitled "Dorothy Vernon." "The Bears of Blue River" must not be called either a novel or a historical romance; it will consist of a volume of short stories which have been running in The Ladies' Home Journal, and which recount the adventures of some boys in hunting bears early in the century near the author's home in Shelbyville, Ind. "The Master-Knot of Human Fate," by Ellis Meredith, takes its title from the familiar quatrain of Omar Khayyam: The somewhat exaggerated reports of Tolstoi's illness are contradicted by the fact that the novelist is hard at work on his new novel, "Father Sergius." Nor does his excommunication prevent him from handling dangerous and forbidden themes. The forthcoming story deals with the spiritual history of a monk, who at one time was an aristocratic debauchee, and later was almost worshipped by the believers as a saint. the English rights in Capt. Dreyfus' own account Messrs. McClure, Phillips & Co. have secured all of his trial, conviction, imprisonment and ultimate rehabilitation and liberation. The book, which is called "Five Years of My Life," contains in addition to a recital of the salient points of the writer's life during the period, his Devil's Island diary, and letters written by Mme. Dreyfus to her husband, with several letters of the captain to his wife, hitherto unpublished. 66 Red haired, squint eyed little pomposity" this is the pleasant description of Mr. Kipling given "Up from Earth's Centre through the Seventh Gate by a Montreal reporter. "The description," says I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate, And many a Knot unravel'd by the Road; But not the Master-Knot of Human Fate." the London "Mail," is accurate, 'with the following reservations: (1) Mr. Kipling is not red haired; (2) he does not squint; (3) he is not Another quatrain suggesting the theme of the pompous. He can be 'nasty' to people he does not volume is the following: "Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire John Luther Long, author of "The Prince of Illusion," which the Century Company have just issued, is a young Philadelphia lawyer, who made his first literary success with "Madame Butterfly." Edwin Asa Dix, author of the popular "Deacon Bradbury," whose new novel, "Old Bowen's Legacy," has just appeared, is also a lawyer by training, though not by practice. The number of lawyers, or ex-lawyers, on the Century Company's list of authors is noteworthy. It includes Vice-President Roosevelt, author of "The Strenuous Life;" the Hon. John Hay, secretary of State, Lincoln's like; but to people he does like he is the most unassuming, unaffected and courteous being under heaven." Mrs. Helen Campbell's novel, “Ballantyne,” will shortly be published by Little, Brown and Company. Although the book is a distinctively American story, the plot is decidedly original, worked out with strong character drawing and interesting movement. Marion Lacy, the heroine, is an American girl who goes to England to live because her own country has proved a disappointment. hero, Ballantyne, though American by inheritance, has been brough up in an English home by a mother whose one wish is that he shall never visit America. To Ballantyne, however, America has been an ideal, standing for everything that is free and high, and on the death of his mother he visits Its this country. "A Reading of Life," George Meredith's new volume of poems, will soon appear here and in England. Lilian Whiting's new book, "The Spiritual Significance; or Death as an Event in Life," is now in its sixth thousand. Mrs. Dudeney, the chronicler of "Folly Corner," is bringing out a new novel under the title of "The Third Floor." The story deals with journalism. The Scribners have in press a book on China by the well-known traveler Henry Savage Landor. The author has the distinction of being the "first" European to enter the forbidden palace tinction which is, however, disputed. a dis A new American novelist, Stewart Edward White, makes his debut through D. Appleton & Co. by a story called "The Claim Jumpers," the central figure of which is a conservative New Englander, who finds himself in a western mining camp. "The Story of Greece," by E. S. Shuckburgh, is scheduled for fall publication by Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons. The particular aim of this work is to illustrate the part played by the Greeks in the history of civilization, in the development of art and literature, and in the formation of political and religious ideals. Legal Notes. was The United States Supreme Court has handed down a decision reversing the decision of the lower courts in the case of James B. Lyon, of this city, against the town of Tonawanda, which originally brought to set aside a paving assessment on his property in Delaware street, Tonawanda, on the ground that the assessment was illegal. The decision of the Supreme Court makes the assessment laid by the town board valid, and the board will now go ahead and spread the assessment. The decision gives much satisfaction to the residents of the town. Chief Justice Charles B. Andrews, of the Connecticut Supreme Court, has sent in his resignation to Governor McLean. Ill health is the reason for the resignation, and the date fixed for retirement is October first. Charles Bartlett Andrews was born in Sunderland, Mass., in 1834, and was graduated at Amherst in 1858. He has been a member of the house and senate in the general assembly, and was elected governor of the State in 1878. In 1882 he was appointed a judge of the Superior Court, and served there until his promotion by Governor Bulkeley to the Supreme bench in 1890. Judge Lumpkin, of the Superior Court, Cincinnati, has denied the application for a charter for 'The Atlanta Institute of Christian Science," the effect of his decision being that Christian Scientists cannot practice their treatment in Georgia without having regularly graduated in medicine or passed an examination before the medical examining board, the same as other physicians. Governor Odell has signed the bill which the legislature passed at the solicitation of the Automobile Club. Automobiles may henceforth be regarded as having an established status on the roads of this State. The new law provides for the registration of automobiles, and gives them an allowed speed of eight miles an hour in cities and villages, and of fifteen miles an hour on country roads. Horseless carriages will thus enjoy the privileges of vehicles drawn by horses. But pedestrians will still have the right of way at crossings. It is refreshing to notice any indication on the part of the judiciary of a desire to restore to the bench its literary character. Its reputation in this connection has suffered severely of late. Some few of his majesty's judges have a command of correct language, but for the most part they are sadly to seek. It is but seldom that one hears in the courts a judgment or a summing up which is not slip-shod The book is intended to aid not only ministers and theological students, but intelligent laymen as .well, to get a clearer apprehension of the great undercurrents of their own age and of the consequent feeling of the need of reconstruction in theology and the reasons for it and the lines along which such a reconstruction must proceed. Especial pains have been taken to set forth concisely, but compre- and commonplace. Where are the successors of hensively, the markedly new intellectual world in which this generation lives and which must inevitably affect theology. The relation of theology to natural science is discussed with care, particularly as bearing on the question of miracle, and the inferences from the evolution theory. the Cockburns, the Coleridges, the Bowens, in the present generation? The English of Lord Alverstone, C. J., whether written or spoken, is homely and direct, but nothing more; nobody would accuse the master of the rolls of constructing polished periods; and Lord Macnaghten alone in the house of lords is able to draft a pleasing sentence. Lord amounted to $1,000. Bowen, whose English was of the choicest brand, suffered a good deal in the Court of Appeal. "There is a distressing nudity about A. L.'s language," he once remarked to a sympathetic friend. The same absence of style may be observed at the bar. There are plenty of good talkers, but very few whose speeches would bear reporting. Probably Sir Edward Clarke, K. C., Mr. Lawson Walton, K. C., and Mr. C. W. Mathews stand, as well as the horrid test of the short-hand writer.London Daily Telegraph. any, The United States Circuit Court, sitting in New York, recently had before it the suit of James Allison, assignee of Hammerstein, who built the Olympia theater, against the New York Life Insurance Company, to recover $70,000, the alleged value of certain fixtures, such as dynamo, engines, etc., which the Life Insurance Company claimed went with the realty which it purchased at foreclosure sale. The jury in the lower court rendered a verdict of $35,000. On the appeal, the U. S. Circuit Court, Judge Wallace writing the opinion, held that the dynamo, engines, etc., and all of the articles with the exception of about $3,000, that had been allowed by the jury, remained personal property, and were not fixtures attached to the real estate. The position of law clerk of the treasury department at Washington will, after July first, be held by Miss Clara Greacen, of Michigan. She will be the first woman to hold the position in the history of the department. The promotion of Miss Greacen is an instance of the recognition of the legal ability and energies of a woman, for she possesses no other influence, we are told, than her uncommon ability and fitness for the position. Miss Greacen studied law at one of the universities in Washington, and was recently admitted to practice at the District of Columbia bar. In her new position Miss Greacen will write legal opinions for the government in the office of the controller of the treasury. Whenever a public-spirited citizen makes a fight in the interests of his fellow-citizens, it happens so frequently that he not only has his trouble and inconvenience for his pains, but is also more or less out of pocket, that it is interesting to note how a citizen of Syracuse has been allowed partial recompense for his efforts in saving that city $85,000. The city, desiring to raise $1,000,000 to pay off that amount of bonds, proposed to issue $1,000,000 four per cent bonds. It appearing that such an issue, because of the premium that could be obtained therefor, would net considerably more than enough to pay off the old bonds and interest, a Mr. Chase got an injunction restraining the city from issuing more of the bonds than would suffice to raise the sum desired. Subsequently, the city raised the amount by selling $915,000 of such bonds. Among other expenses contracted by Mr. Chase in the litigation were his lawyer's bills, one of which Consequently, Mr. Chase asked the court for a special allowance, which is a sum awarded at the discretion of the court to a successful litigant. The court allowed Mr. Chase $750, saying (Chase v. Syracuse, 34 Misc. Rep. 144) that, inasmuch as his action was brought not so much for his own protection as for that of "all the taxpayers, public policy required that, where a taxpayer does prevent waste of the public funds, he should be protected from loss by means of a reasonable allowance. Otherwise, the bringing of such action, often most useful and necessary, will be discouraged."— N. Y. Evening Post. The so-called Deceased Wife's Sister bill has passed its second reading in the house of commons by a vote of 279 to 122. Twice before, the bill passed its third reading in the house of lords, but was blocked in the house of commons. Its supporters believe King Edward's well-known interest in the measure will help it through on this occasion. Lord Hugh Cecil, one of the bitterest opponents of the measure, declared its real purpose was to enable certain wealthy and influential persons who had broken the law to secure a "whitewash." The news that the recent purchaser of a large lot of land on Riverside drive opposite Grant's Tomb intends to build thereon a thirteen-story apartment hotel with a roof garden and restaurant features suggests the urgent necessity of taking steps to restrict, so far as possible, the immediate surroundings not only of the tomb, but also of other fine public structures and places in our city. It seems a mockery to expend large public appropriations and generous private contributions in beautifying and ennobling the city, and then to allow the effect produced to be ruined or lessened by the encroachments of private enterprises. The people of New whose contribuYork and of the country at large who now go tions helped build the monument · yearly by the hundreds of thousands, and who will go forever, in constantly increasing numbers, up the drive to admire and enjoy the great monument and the noble views in all directions can well imagine the dwarfing effect both on monument and outlook of a huge hotel towering close to the monument. Nor is this the only case in this city of actual or threatened encroachments upon this peculiar kind of public property and public rights. Coincidently with the report of this threatened hotel comes a suggestion from the Massachusetts Supreme Court. as to the way to protect such a right, if it is not already protected. To protect the view, from the outlying suburban districts of Boston, towards the State house, the Massachusetts legislature passed a law in 1899 limiting to seventy feet the height of buildings on a small tract of land west of the State house, and providing that compensation should be made to property-owners injured by the restriction. This law has just been upheld by the court, which characterized it as one "as much in the interests of the public at large as travellers on the highway as it was in the interests of the commonwealth," one December, 1901, to be computed upon the basis of object of the law being "to save the dignity and the amount of capital stock employed by it within beauty of the city at its culminating point for the pride of every Bostonian, and for the pleasure of every member of the State." This decision is in line with a similar decision of the same court, upholding a law limiting to ninety feet the height of buildings around the famous Copley Square, the court basing its decision in part on the argument that the same reasons which justify the taking of land for a park justify the expenditure of money to make the parks "attractive and educational to those whose tastes are being formed, and whose love of beauty is being cultivated." There seems ample authority for legislation, preventing private property in the immediate vicinity of public places from being put to such uses as will detract from the value to the public of the public property and the public rights. There is need of such legislation in New York.-N. Y. Evening Post. Twenty-three years ago, the Third National Bank of Chicago, closed its doors. The bank's assets, however, proved sufficient to pay all the creditors in full, principal and interest, with a balance over. Now, the stockholders are indignant over the report that the comptroller of the currency has instructed the receiver of the defunct bank to sell the assets and pay over the proceeds to the stockholders. The assets consist of Chicago real estate of an estimated value of a million and a half, due to the appreciation in realty values since the time of the failure of the bank, and there is presented the unique spectacle of the defunct bank's stock being quoted at almost twice its par value. The stockholders declare they will resist any attempt to force an accounting of the bank's affairs, claiming that the comptroller has no power to do so, since all the creditors of the bank were long ago paid in full, and the disposal of the remaining assets rests entirely with the stockholders. Among the more important bills of the late legislative session, signed by the governor, is the socalled Corporation Tax Law, which becomes chapter 558, Laws of 1901. The old law taxed foreign corporations for the privilege of entering this State to do business one-eighth of one per cent on their capital stock computed on the amount of capital employed in business during the first year. Any increase of capital after the first year was not taxed. Domestic corporations paid an organization tax and a tax on all increase of capital besides taxes on dividends. The new law proposes to equalize matters a trifle better by providing, in the case of foreign corporations, that "if any year thereafter any such corporation shall employ an increased amount of its capital stock within this State, the same license fee shall be due and payable upon any such increase. The tax imposed by this section on a corporation not heretofore subject to its provisions, shall be paid on the first day of the State during the year preceding such date, unless on such date such corporation shall not have employed capital within the State for a period of thirteen months in which case it shall be paid within the time otherwise provided by this section." By a further amendment to section 183, relative to exemption of corporations, it is provided that laundering, mining and manufacturing corporations shall be exempt when they have at least forty per cent of their capital invested in property in this State and used by it in its business. A new provision also exempts elevated and other railroads, which have leased other roads, from the present double taxation on the receipts of the lessor and lessee lines, by providing for a single tax of three per cent upon the dividends declared and paid from the moneys received in the form of rent or otherwise from the operating company in excess of four per centum upon the amount of its capital stock. In the course of its progress through the office, up to the issue and mailing of a patent, an application passes through the hands of fifty-two persons. An applicant pays fifteen dollars to have his claim examined, and in case he is granted a patent an additional fee of twenty dollars is required. Attorneys charge from twenty-five dollars up, according to the work demanded by the cases, and as the applications number about 40,000 annually it will be seen that there is a good deal of money to be divided among the patent lawyers whose signs cover the faces of the buildings in the vicinity of the patent office. An inventor is not required to employ an attorney, but probably ninety-nine out of a hundred do. The Supreme Court of Georgia, in a recent decision, holds that the law allowing twenty-five per cent damages and attorney's fees to the insured, in case the company refuses to pay the claim within sixty days, and it is shown that the latter acted in bad faith, is unconstitutional. A similar conclusion has been reached in Missouri over the law relating to "Vexatious delays." A concurrent resolution has passed the New Jersey legislature providing for a constitutional amendment authorizing biennial sessions of that body. Some years ago a similar amendment was defeated at the polls. It is to be hoped, however, that there is a better prospect for the adoption of the amendment now, although there are no reasons for its advocacy existing to-day which did not exist four years ago. Most of the States have biennial sessions, the only exceptions being Georgia, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina and New Jersey. The change seems to have worked well in these States, and we know of no reason why it should not in this. The politicians who seek office, and some of the larger cities, where it seems to have been the custom to take annually to the |