The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-11-12
N Run to Earth,0

"hun 10 EafJns"
The London Spectator has the following no
tice of one of Miss Braddon's latest eforts:-
"Run to Earth" is an extraordinary speci-
men of sensational fiction. The author has,
if possible, excelled herself, she has beaten all
her rivals, she has forever obscured the fame
of those wonderful fction-writers, beloved of
errand-boys and shop girls, who deal in re-
veDge and murder, jealousy and hatred, who
treat the widest and most diabolical actions as
ordinary occurrences, who convert men into
ghouls and women into harpies, who can
transform with stroke of the pen beggar
into a princess and an English gentle
man into a Thug. If the first object
of the novelist be to excite a morbid
curiosity, if blood and poisoning and intrigue,
the most hateful passions, the vilest actions,
form the best Ingredients of fiction, then it
must be owned that no one has mixed them
together more skilfully than Miss Braddon.
Her admirers, and they are many, will assu-
redy not be disappointed with this fiction.
We can promise them murder, a seduction,
a suicide, and the conversion of a street. singer
into fashionable young lady before they have
read hundred pages OF the story. A little
further on they will be introduced to q surgeon
known as Victor Darlington, but who
is in reality an exiled French noble
man, "a creature without a con-
science, without heart" who wears a
mask of metal with glass eyes, aocomplishes
an outrageous plot and an incredible murder
in the first volume, plot still more outrage
Gus and murder only possible in fiction in
the second volume, and very nearly commits
another murder in the third. Then the read
ers Of this marvellous novel will be taken to
my sterious gambling house at Fulham, with a
secret room in which rouge-et-noir is played.
The house is kept by Madame Durski a lonely
and beautiful woman, who lures fools to their
destruction, is herself slave to opium, and
yet, strange to say, is one of the most respect
able people in the narrative. This lady's affi-
aDced lover accuses her of endeavoring to poi
son him, whereupon Madame Durski, "luck-
less, hopeless, heartbroken," takes an over
dose of her favorite compound" and disap-
pears from the scene. This is bat one sensa-
tional incident among many. We have a
sailor accusing his honest fatherin-law
| Of murder, a husband accusing his
wife of adultery, the disappearance
| of baby heiress who lives in castle and is
protected by great iron door, the achieve
ments of London detective, and the igno-
minious failures of husband hunter. Mar
vellous, too, are the adventures of the heroine,
who sings in low public houses at Wapping,
is said to be the child of wretch whom she
knows to be murderer is picked out of the
gutter by a baronet worth 940, 900 year, is
transferred to ga thoroughly aristocratic semi
nary, presided over by two maiden sisters"
(whose vulgarity, by-the-way, as described in
the position they occupy, marries the baro-
net, is made widow in few weeks through
Carlington's devices, devotes herself to pur-
| poses of revenge, and discovers at last that
she is the stolen CHILD Of lady of title and
distantly connected with her husband 3 family.
We have but glanced at some of the more
prominent incidents of the novel, which the
author is no doubt justified in calling "a SEN
sational story, pure and simple" She quotes
also an observation made by Zone of the most
accomplished reviewers of the day" (Mr.
Lewes, we believe), to the effect that in criti-
cizpg stories there should be some discrimi-
nation of the kind of interest attempted and
that the cri ic should not demand from the
writer qualities incompatible with or utterly
disregarded by his method. The interest
aimed at in "Run to Earth'' is sim ply
sensational, and we are ready to grant
that in that aim the author has
been successful. She has made up tale
utterly without probability, without charac-
teIization, without thought, without humor,
pathOs, or poetry, without one of the charms,
in short, which delights us in the great mas
ters of fiction, tale which has no use in the
world beyond that Of stimulating an unwhole
some curiosity, and supplying fitting alimen
to vulgar sort OF mental dissipation. Thi.
is the kind of success achieved by the writers
of sensational fiction, and the same kind o
distinction may be justly awarded to tn,
novel before us. 1t fulfls its purpose, bu
the critic may be permitted to ask whethe
such purpose is worth fulfllingf
THE ATLANTIC CABLE.-An official statemen
has been recently published, giving the averag
number of messages sent every day over tn
Atlantic Cable and the average daily receipt
during the existence of the different rates O
charges. When the communication was hrs
opened between Ireland and Newfoundland
G2O was charged for a message of twent
] words of five letters, but this rate has nov
} been reduced to f3, and in future the restriC
, tion as to the length of the words will b
removed. Under the original tariff 29 mes
. ssges, paying f505, were on an average trans
. mitted every day, and under the present tariff
r l6S messages, paying f50l. Although tn
9 proportion between the reduction of the rat
= and the increase of the business is not exactl
Q the same, yet there is sufficient encourage
ment to still further diminish the cost of trans
> mittiDg messages. The American manager
b believe that the price should be decrease
n until the point is reached when both cable