The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1863-03-06

The PORTLAND DIRECTORY AND REFERENCE Book,
for 1854. By 5. Is. Beckett. Printed by
Brown Thurston. l6 mo. PIP 324.
1t is nearly twenty years since Mr.. Beckett
published the first thin volume of this useful
series. The enterprise may almost be said to
have commenced with his labors, though two
meager compilations of the kind preceded his
undertaking. The volumes have grown with the
growth of the city, and will be hereafter-indeed
the earlier volumes are already, rich in anti
quarian interest. The whole series should be
preserved in at least one of the public libraries
ofthe city. The directory proper now covers
26l pages, and contains more names by over
thousand, than the last. The list is arranged
for the first time in strict alphabetical order and
is said TO have been compiled with unusual ac-
curacy. Some errors of course occur; in work
of this Kind, they are simply unavoidable. The
appendix contains more than the usual amount
of valuable information-a list of the city Of
fcers for the municipal year, and of the mayors
since the incorporation of the city, an account
of the various business corporations, and of the
literary and charitable associations of Portland
list of all the vessels belonging to the district
'ssD "'eASoo " 81 ohi VIC iiutA CoNcfs ClDse-
ly printed pages, and to that we refer the reader
This work should be published annually, If
our merchants and traders and men of means
were regular patrons of the enterprise, it might
be. Anthony Trollope said, after his visit to
Portland in 1861, that he had never elsewhere
seen a city of its size adorned by so many pri-
waite residences by their appearance betokening
a measurable affiuence. And yet the last Direct
DRY was published nearly five years ago; the
time and labor requisite for a proper perform
ance of this public service has not been duly
considered; the demand for such work has
not been sufficient TO justify its annual publica-
ton. This should not be; at least we ought to
sustain Directory every second year.
The new Directory may be obtained ut the
bookstores, or at Mr.. Thurston's Commercial
Reading Room.
CHRONICLES OF CARLINGFoRD. Novel. New
York: Harper Brothers. Svo. PIP. 306. For
sale in this city by A. Robinson.
Sketches of English society, in whatever guise,
are always welcome to American readers. Notes
of travel are full of their own interest, but the
traveller himself is an homogeneous figure al
ways present. The book of travels is an Eng
lsh landscape seen through somebody's window
but the English novel is painting, full of ia
miliar home touches, and we look at it with our
own eyes, through no distorting medium. Mrs.
ELEPHANTS book is a portfolio of such sketches.
There is no plot, only the rustic back ground of
country village, and relieved against il the fig
ures of the attorney, the rector the doctor. and
the dissenting minister of Salem chapel. The an
tthesis of the established and dissenting church.
es is something strange TO the American
mind, that we never grow weary of tracing its
effects; and it is upon some of the the subtlest
influences of this antthesis on the minds and
manners of men, that the interest of ''Salem
Chapel, the most considerable of these sketch
es, turns