Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 43.djvu/874

  gifts direct from the hand of God, for which he is a specially selected and ordained recipient, either a fool, a fanatic, or a rascal?"

The Religious Herald (Hartford, Conn.) presents to its subscribers as a souvenir of fifty years' publication of the paper, a large and profusely illustrated volume entitled Picturesque Chicago and Guide to the World's Fair. It consists of descriptions of the city, its parks, benevolences, business houses, institutions, and other peculiar features, illustrated by more than fifty photographic reproductions. The mechanical execution is of the most pleasing character.

A view of what some socialistic agitators might do if they had opportunity is given in a little book entitled Is it Right to rob Robbers? by Morrison L. Swift, published by the Commonwealth Society, Boston. The "robbers" of the story are capitalist employers. A plot formed by <a few clerks to steal regularly from the moneys of their concerns and distribute the sums among the needy, spreads till it includes nearly all the employed and vast corporative concerns have been built up out of the proceeds, "labor" has found its level as high as capital, and all of society—manufacturers, the legal profession, education, and what not—are affected by the conditions developed. Detection comes at last; capital shows its cruel hand in the prosecution of the thieves, now numbering many thousands; convulsions and almost revolution follow, till at last insolent capital is forced to yield and share in the universal partnership.

No. 10 of the third volume of Werner's Readings and Recitations, compiled and arranged by Caroline B. Le Row, (quarterly, Edgar S. Werner, 28 West Twenty-third Street, New York), is known as America's Recitation Book, and includes pieces, by American authors only, on great events in the history of our country, arranged according to the chronology. The pieces are classified as relating to Discoveries, Settlements, French and Indian Wars, Revolutionary War and Declaration of Independence, the War of 1812 and the Mexican War, and the Civil War and Emancipation Proclamation.

The Conversations on some of the Old Poets were published by Mr. J. R. Lowell in 1845, and again in a revised edition in 1846; and were reprinted in London in 1845. They were afterward allowed to pass out of print. Mr. Lowell did not include them in his collected works, regarding them as in a measure superseded by his later and more mature writings on like subjects. They have, however, a value and interest that have not been lessened by time or by the author's growth in fame; and although a self-restraint with which we can find no fault may have prevented the author from pressing his thoughts on the same subjects twice upon the public, often greatly modified the second time and perhaps contradictory of the first impression such scruple need not now exist to exclude the reading public from what is really a very enjoyable and instructive series of essays. The conversational form was adopted partly because the essays were discursive, and partly to enable them to be so without violation of the canons of literary propriety. They have their faults, which appertain to the youthfulness of the author at the time he wrote them; but, as the present publishers well say, Mr. Lowell's reputation can better afford the faults than our literature can afford the suppression of the work. The present edition is published, with an introduction by Robert Ellis Thompson, by David McKay, Philadelphia.



Agricultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins: Michigan. Potatoes, by P. M. Harwood. Pp. 20.—Massachusetts. Meteorological Summary. May and June, 1892-1893. Pp. 8.—Iowa. Various Articles. Pp. 84.

"A. L. A." Library. Catalogue, 5,000 volumes for a Popular Library. Washington: U. S. Bureau of Education. Pp. 200.

The Altruistic Review. Monthly. Chicago. Pp. 45. 20 cents; $2 a year.

American Chemical Society. Journal. March, 1893. Pp. 40. $5 a year.

Arnold, Matthew. Sohrab and Rustum. American Book Company. Pp. 44. 20 cents.

Beal, Dr. W. J. Report of the Botanical Department, etc.. University of Michigan Pp. 37.

Bolton, Henry Carrington. A Select Bibliography of Chemistry, 1492-1892. Washington: Smithsonian Institution. Pp. 1212.

Bottome, S. R. Electricity and Magnetism. A Popular Introduction. Macmillan & Co. Pp. 203. 90 cents.

Bradley, F. n. Appearance and Reality. Macmillan & Co. Pp. 558. $1.75.

Clerke, Agnes M. A Popular History of Astronomy during the Nineteenth Century. London: Adam and Charles Black. Pp. 573.

Cleveland, The Duchess of. The True Story of Kaspar Hauser. Macmillan & Co. Pp. 112. $1.50.

Cummins, W. F. Notes on the Geology of Northwest Texas. Austin: Geological Survey of Texas. Pp. 60.