with the actual Washtucna of the Gazetteer, but it is a "hospitable, generous, hilarious, rancorous, exuberant, kindly community," self-divided into Saints and Sinners, and where its treatment of such a woman as Cam's mother is concerned, delicately chivalrous. The old Washtucna has vanished like the young Cam and Mart, and Mr. Walsh's study of village and boys has logical value, but it is also a very fine piece of fiction, amusing, shrewd, and spirited. The Macmillan Company.

Some of the suggestions which Mr. Charles H. Sherrill makes in his appeal for "Modernizing the Monroe Doctrine" (Houghton Mifflin Company) may startle the casual reader, but they are based on a somewhat intimate knowledge of Latin-American conditions gained by the author while United States Minister to Argentina, and also on his studies and observations as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Mr. Sherrill is far enough from advocating a curtailment or surrender of the Monroe Doctrine; he would have it strengthened and extended by means of a firmly-cemented Pan-Americanism. The ideal which he presents is not at all that of territorial expansion, but the extension of trade, the promotion of good feeling, the establishment of common interests, and the setting up of a League of American republics which shall hold America for the Americans and shall be a force on the side of worldwide peace. How far this dream may be capable of realization and whether the particular measures which Mr. Sherrill outlines are practicable may be open to dispute, but at least the purpose is a noble one. In a brief, but well-considered Introduction, President Nicholas Murray Butler of Columbia University urges that the present is the psychological moment to draw the

republics of the three Americas together, since they are all alike removed from the immediate theatre of the world-war, but that such a strengthening of the ties between the American republics need not bring them into antagonism with the older nations of Europe and Asia.

"The wind that blows, the ship that goes, and the lass that loves a sailor" is the tune to which Mr. Ralph D. Paine's "The Long Road Home" is set, and it blends adventure, love, fighting and humor in a way to please those who care for either of the four. The hero, Edward Barrington, is not always certain whether he is dead or alive, at one time plans to become an assassin, and at another is quite sure that he is a foredoomed pauper, but always falls on his feet in good sailor fashion, and at last, finely discomfits his enemies. The stay-at-homes of the story live in Eppingham, a New England port whence trade has departed, although it retains advantages of which many of its denizens are so keenly aware that they are standing by, in full readiness to sell them cheap to the highest bidder. Upon these gentlemen the heroine descends in a thoroughly effectual way, and the consequence is "the suddenest twenty-four hours that ever struck Eppingham village," and its transformation into a busy, happy place whence the schemers have departed, leaving the honest men in comfortable possession, and the heroine feeling that she, like the hero, has "come home to Eppingham." The sad truth that potential Tweeds and J. Fisks may lurk in an apparently innocent village is cleverly brought out, and the shrewdness of certain mothers in Israel is most agreeably displayed in a series of amusing scenes. The style of the book betrays knowledge of the latest slang, and of the best, purest English; and its long road should be a well-known

thoroughfare. The Eppingham postmaster's wife with abilities extending beyond the ordinary gift of reading post cards is worth some travel to discover. Charles Scribner's Sons.

"The Coast of Adventure," by Harold Bindloss, is a story of the Spanish Main and of certain Americans and Britons who steered their way thither across the Caribbean in search of profitable adventure and found it, although not precisely as they had wished. Revolutionists, assassins, malaria, spies, pretty girls with no veracity, very fat senoras distorting the truth beyond reason, girls angelic in disposition and correct in politics and a good chess playing priest, gazing at the shifting scene with the calm eyes of comprehension are among the personages and all of them talk well. A Scottish engineer, as adroit in his profession as Kipling's McPhee, but amusing himself with strategy for his enemies, and generous bestowal of his miscellaneous knowledge upon his employers and friends binds the plot together, and maintains the interest at a high level. The LatinAmerican receives scant courtesy at the author's hands and is cast for all the unpleasant male parts in the piece, the priest being the only one willingly to be encountered without a good revolver. The book was published in England last year, when almost any Western summer isle of Eden seemed an agreeable refuge to minds aweary of the real wars in Europe and their reflections in newspapers and novels, but it is as uncompromisingly anti-Spanish as if it had been written while the Lone Star was as conspicuous as Orion. The school histories of the United States will make the way as easy for it, as they made it for Mayne Reid and Sylvanus Cobb, but Mr. Bindloss is no imitator of either of them, but a writer who knows how to lead his story to a climax, and to end with a telling phrase. "The

Coast of Adventure" would beguile the hours at the dullest of summer retreats. Frederick A. Stokes Company.

The fifteen stories of mystery in Percy James Brebner's "The Master Detective" center about Christopher Quarles, the Philadelphian Professor of Philosophy, whose name gave the author the title for a former book. As a detective the good Christopher does not differ in any important particular from Sherlock Holmes, or Mr. Dupin, or any of the other members of his guild known to fiction written in English, and the chronicle of his doings like theirs is supposed to be set down by a faithful and admiring shadow, but the women encountered in this book are decidedly superior to those created by Sir Conan Doyle. If good, they are braver and more clever and if bad, more diabolically ingenious. Indeed, there is a touch of Kingsley in Mr. Brebner's treatment of female characters. In one story, he boldly suggests comparison with Poe and introduces an ape; in another, a traveler, like him who brought the Moonstone, returns from a far land with priceless gems to which a curse is attached; and in still others figure mysterious poisons used with the remorseless skill of a Brenvilliers, but in all Mr. Brebner is inclined to rejoice over feminine ability, no matter how it may manifest itself, although he never falls into the mistake of making a bad woman end triumphantly. It is some years since he wrote "The Little Gray Shoe" and in his list of annual books "The Master Detective" will rank high for its varied merits in plot and treatment. If he would once more essay the production of an important novel it would greatly please those who dislike to see real talent devoted to the production of miniatures, when the artist's hand is quite strong enough to be employed on a large canvas. E. P. Dutton and Company.