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"Hawaii and its People," has turned his knowledge of the islands to account in writing a romance of pagan Hawaii, which he calls "Kelea the Surf-Rider." It is to be published by Fords, Howard & Hulbert.

Mr. Charles Neufeld, who wrote "A Prisoner of the Khaleefa," has completed a story for boys, called "Under the Rebel's Reign: a Story of Egyptian Revolt," in which he utilizes for fiction some of the material which he collected while a prisoner in the hands of the Mahdi. If he is a good story teller, the book should be exceptionally stirring, for he can have no lack of exciting incidents at his command.

Mr. John Murray's autumn announcements are unusually rich in books of fiction. Among them are "A Vizier's Daughter," a story of Afghan life by Miss Lillian Hamilton, who was the Ameer's medical adviser; "The Heart's Highway," by Miss Mary E. Wilkins, a romance of Virginia in the seventeenth century; "Monica Grey," by the Hon. Lady Hely-Hutchinson, and half a dozen others.

Apropos of the tendency of some writers of fiction to use the same characters over and over again in suceeding stories, a writer in the New York Evening Post urges that an asylum for used-up characters in fiction would be at least as useful as Dr. Holmes's suggested asylum for decayed punsters. But it makes a difference who the characters are; probably no one ever objected to the frequent reappearance of Thackeray's characters.

One does not often meet a book more admirably adapted to its purpose than the "Manual of Personal Hygiene," which Dr. Walter L. Pyle of the Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia, edits, and

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Mr. John Murray, who is publishing an English edition of Mrs. Edith Wharton's story, "The Touchstone," encountered a succession of difficulties with reference to the title. He discovered that the title had been already used and therefore communicated with the author, asking her permission to call it "The Touch of a Vanished Hand." Mrs. Wharton was then travelling in Italy, a circumstance which delayed her reply, but when she was at last heard from, her letter suggested another title. Investigation disclosed the fact that that title also had been preempted; so Mr. Murray went on with the printing under the title which he had proposed, only to discover when the book was printed, that a novel called "The Touch of a Vanished Hand" was published in 1889. He therefore rechristened the book "A Gift from the Grave" and cherishes a hope that no prior claimant to this title will arise.

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Under the title "The Crisis in China" Harper & Bros. republish from recent numbers of The North American Review a dozen striking papers relating to the existing situation in China. They are written by Mr. Wu, the Chinese minister at Washington, Lord Charles Beresford, Mr. Colquhoun, General James H. Wilson, the Presi

dents of the Anglo-China college at Foochow and the International Institute of China at Peking, and others who write with the authority derived from special information. It is a remarkable grouping of timely papers: and it serves incidentally to illustrate the "news value" of The North American Review, as at present conducted.

The "Conquest of Arid America," which Mr. William E. Smythe describes and advises, is a conquest with which all Americans can sympathize, whatever their views may be upon what is called "Imperialism," for it is a conquest of peace, promising large results in the material future of America. Aridity Mr. Smythe treats as a blessing, or at least as capable of being turned into a blessing by the modern miracle of irrigation. His arguments for measures to bring together the men who need land and the land which needs men, and his presentation of the effect upon character and institutions of the co-operation necessary in great colonizing and irrigation enterprises are made pungently, and with force and enthusiasm; while his record of what has been already done in these directions is drawn from fresh sources and personal observation. The author has two qualities which are calculated to make an impression upon his readers; he is thoroughly in earnest, and he knows his subject. His book is published by Harper & Bros.

A book of lively present interest and of permanent value is Mr. Archibald R. Colquhoun's "Overland to China," which Harper & Bros. publish. It describes a journey of seven thousand miles which the author made a little more than a year ago from European Russia to Lake Baikal, thence by the Gobi desert to Peking, and later up the Yangtze river as far as it is navigable, and from Szechuan southward

through the southwestern provinces to the Red river. These are regions which are very much in the world's eye just at present, and likely to be for a long time to come. In traversing them in company with Mr. Colquhoun the reader has the advantage not merely of his fresh personal impressions, but of his wide and accurate knowledge of China and the Chinese. The chapters on Peking, Manchuria, and the Yangtze valley are especially valuable. Mr. Colquhoun's volume is nearly indispensable to one who wishes light, not only on the present situation but on the far more complicated problems which are involved in ultimate remaking of the Far East. There are maps and illustrations.

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The wide-spread modern interest in psychical phenomena will certainly be stimulated, and possibly enlightened by a reading of Professor Th. Flournoy's volume, "From India to the Planet Mars," which Harper & Bros. publish in a translation by Daniel B. Vermilye. This book embodies the results of five years' careful investigation of a Geneva medium whom the author, for convenience' sake, calls Mdlle. Helène Smith, but whose real name is concealed. The phenomena attending this woman's trances, in which she is at times an Indian princess, at other times a dweller upon Mars, and at still others Marie Antoinette, are extremely curious. Prof. Flournoy has studied them patiently and intimately, and he states his conclusions with candor. No element of commercialism enters into the matter, for the medium in question regards her powers with religious reverence and never uses them for pay. There will be many readers who will not accept all of the author's conclusions, but we do not see how any one can doubt either his thoroughness or his sincerity.

Alfred in the Chronicles. By Edward
Conybeare, M. A. Elliot Stock.
Arid America. The Conquest of. By
William E. Smythe. Illustrated.
Harper & Bros. Price $1.50.
Asia, Eastern, A Brief History of. By
J. C. Hannah. T. Fisher Unwin.
Autobiography of a Charwoman, The.
By Annie Wakeman. John Macqueen.
Belle of Toorak, The. By E. W. Hor-
nung. Grant Richards.
Bernard, Claude. By Sir Michael Fos-
ter. T. Fisher Unwin.

Birds in Northern Shires, Among the.
By Charles Dixon. W. Blackie.
Chaucer Canon, The: with a Discussion
of the Works associated with the
Name of Geoffrey Chaucer. By the
Rev. Walter W. Skeat. Clarendon
Press.

China, The Crisis in. An Exposition

of the Present Situation, Its Causes
and Its Results. By George B.
Smythe, His Excellency Wu Ting-
Fang and others. With maps and il-
lustrations. Harper & Bros. Price
$1.00.

China, Overland to. By Archibald R.
Colquhoun. Illustrations and Maps.
Harper & Bros. Price $3.00.
Church Problems: A Review of Modern
Anglicanism. By Various Authors.
Edited by Rev. H. Hensley Henson.
John Murray.

Famines in India. By Romesh C.
Dutt. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co.
Father Confessor, The. By Dora Siger.
son Shorter. Ward, Lock & Co.
For Britain's Soldiers. Edited by Cut-
liffe Hyne. Methuen & Co.

For England's Sake: Verses and Songs in Time of War. By W. E. Henley. David Nutt.

French Literature, A Short History of. By L. A. Kastner, B. A. and H. G. Atkins, M. A. Wm. Blackie & Son. Greek Testament, The Expositors'. Volume II. The Acts of the Apostles; St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans; St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians. Edited by the Rev. W. Robertson Nicoll, M. A., LL. D. Hodder & Stoughton.

Heraldry in Relation to Scottish History and Art, being the Rhind Lec

tures on Archaeology for 1898. By Sir James Balfour Paul. Edinburgh: Douglas.

Himalayas, Among the. By Major

Waddell. Archibald Constable & Co. Hygiene, Personal, A Manual of. Edited by Walter L. Pyle, A. M., M. D., Illustrated. W. B. Saunders, Philadelphia.

India, From, To the Planet Mars. By Professor Th. Flournoy. Translated

by Daniel B. Vermilye. Illustrated. Harper & Bros. Price $1.50. Latimer, Hugh, Leaders of Religion Series. By R. M. Carlyle and A. J. Carlyle. Methuen & Co.

Man-Stealers, The. By M. P. Shiel. Hutchinson & Co.

Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, The: and Other Stories and Essays. By Mark Twain. Illustrated. Harper & Bros. Price $1.75.

Mis'ress Joy. By John Le Breton.

John Macqueen.

My After-Dream. A Sequel to "Looking Backward." By Julian West. T. Fisher Unwin.

By

Oxford Pets, Memories of Some. their Friends. T. Fisher Unwin. Paul of Tarsus. By Thomas Bird. Thomas Nelson & Sons. Pen Sketches. By Finley Acker. Press of The McLaughlin Bros., Philadelphia.

Philosophy, Ancient History of. By
Dr. W. Windelband. Authorized
translation by H. E. Cushman.
Sampson Low & Co.

Politics, English, An Introduction to.
By John M. Robertson. Grant Rich-
ards.
Poussin, Nicolas, his Life and Work.
By Elizabeth H. Denio. Sampson
Low & Co.
Rubens: his Life, his Work, and his

Time. By E. Michel. 2 vols. Illus-
trated. W. Heinemann.
Smith, Sydney, Wit and Wisdom of.
Gay & Bird.

Studies in Love. By Maude Egerton
King. J. M. Dent & Co.
Uttermost Farthing, The. By B. Paul
Neuman, W. Blackwood.
Voice of the People, The. By Ellen
Glasgow. W. Heinemann.

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In the month of September of last year Secretary Hay began a diplomatic correspondence in reference to the socalled "open-door" policy in China which marked an important departure in American diplomacy, and indicated to the world that the United States proposed to be heard from at least in the settlement of the future of China, and was willing even to take the initiative in securing the assent of the other Powers to a policy believed by her to be a sound one. If the doctrine of the open door for commerce in China was British in its origin, Lord Salisbury's Government none the less acted wisely in allowing the American Government to make it their own by adoption-particularly as it had been seriously compromised while in charge of its original sponsors. In March of the present year Secretary Hay officially announced the success of the negotiations, in communicating to each of the Governments concerned the several replies of the others.

While recognizing a creditable diplomatic achievement, we must not overlook either the very partial and guarded adherence given by Russia-and she was the one Power most important to commit-to the American proposals, or their very limited scope. These may be summarized in a single sentence;

equal opportunities of commerce for the citizens of all nations in the leased territory or sphere of interest possessed by any nation within the territorial limits of China, with uniform customs dues, under a Chinese tariff and collected by the Chinese Government, harbor dues and railroad charges. The final replies of the other Governments addressed seem reasonably explicit and final; that of Russia, though Count Mouravieff expressed his conviction that it would be satisfactory, and Secretary Hay so accepted it, is certainly only partial, and not very definite. But perhaps it was asking a good deal of her friendship for the United States to expect her to commit herself at all on a matter so vitally related to her future in the Far East. The point of more immediate present interest is that the American proposals, undeniably good as far as they go, do not pretend to embody any solution of the Chinese question. For it is now sufficiently evident that that question is primarily a political, not a commercial, one. door policy is limited to securing equal trade conditions; it does not recognize the deep-seated political disease afflicting the Chinese Empire or offer any remedy. Its implication is that it does not matter what becomes of China politically, or how her territory is di

The open

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