New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-12-22
THE POEMS OF EMMA c. EMBURY. First Collected
rat,ton Icn,o nm IuPd AZ HOuRhtOn.
BOOKS FOR CHILDREN.

If the writers of stories the scenes of which are
10 be laid in poor and dsreputable localities ana
peopled with characters to match, were little wiser
than most of them are. they would imagine the sort
of life they intend to depict as happening IN London
or Paris or almost anywhere except at our own
doors. Poverty and crime are much the same every
where no doubt, but the poverty and crime whlch
we behold every day of our lives affect us differently
from the misery aud the deyltry that we read about
over the water There is spell in such names as d.
Giles and the Seven Dials which never attaches, so
far as we are concerned, to the Five Points ana
Mackerelvlle. 1t may be true, as Lord Houghton
says. that
A mans best things lie nearest him,
Lie close about his feet,
but it is certainly not true of his worst things NJ any
rate for the purposes of Fiction which Is much more
at home in the Unknown THAI the Known. To sum
up the matter in the words of the poet just quoted
at is the distant and the dim,
That we are sick TO greet"
If Mr. Horatio Alger, jr.. had been sufficiently
aware of this fact aud wise enough to have been IN
duenced by IT, he would not have written his last
story Rough and Ready qIoringl, precisely as 1t
stands now or rather he would not have written the
series TO which II belongs as he has done. For, Of
course IL is one of series-the forthwith two
more to follow next year. Rough aud Ready is a
New-YoIk newsboy Of the stock type his mother
being dead, his father-no, steplather-addicted 10
idleness and bad whisky, and his little sister Rose
left in lrs charge. Guessing by instinct the politics
of his customers, he is amazingly smart IN working
off his PAPERS and very Savings Bank of boy in
boarding ND his dividends. He goes snacks with
INDECENT bootblacks and is valiant enough to rescue
rich banker from the clutches OF two burglars,
whom he dashes TO the pavement with bat, pur-
chased for that express purpose! lie absconds
with his sister, whom ho persuades a poor
seamstress TO lodge board and instruct at ms cost
proceeding which his stepparent does not approve
Of So the latter steals the child and hides her away
in Brooklyn. yirtuous young boot-black inter
views" this disreputable old kidnapper whom lie Is
fortunate enough 10 find drunk in the street, and
helps him to his clearinghouse. where Rose Is con-
cealed. Rough and Ready finds her as she is beg
ging on a Fulton Ferry boat and takes her back to
the needy seamstress In the end his virtue and his
bravery are rewarded for he Is taken into the bank
ing-hOuse of the rich merchant already mentioned,
at a salary of IS week. This is all there is Of
Rough and Ready" But not all there is to be of
him; for is he not one of n numerous family, as
Ragged Dick, Mark the Match Boy, Ben the Lug
gage Boy, &c.i And have we not left him enyroned
by the perils of Wall-si There will assuredly DO
more of him, if Mr. Alger lives to write and We to
read
If History has habit of repeating itself as are
told the history of chidrens books repetitious
Just now as the Democratic vote Of this city. We
have whole OF writer's at work for our children,
most of whom in the midst of serials the end of
which is not yet. They are published by the box
full six being the average number Of volumes in a
box Mr. Ager, as we have noticed, is four deep in
his Ragged Dick Series and the Rev. Elijah Kel-
logg is also four deep in his Elm Island Stories "
Ill al VIC
Elm Island" is published by Messrs. Lee 81 Shepard.
Judging it as ali episode in larger work, we find
it tolerably entertaining, and If we need the lesson
implied in the celebrated remark of the late Samuel
Patch of diving memory, viz, that some things
can be done as well Others" it will,
without doubt, strengthen us In the de-
termination TO be industrious, and to get
and save money. 1t is refreshing, from ecOno-
mic point Of view TO see how much was made out of
a raft of lumber which Capt. Rhines and some of his
neghbors took to Cuba and out of the brig if it
brig, which purchased with tho proceeds, and
laden with sugar and moasses. The crew had ven
lures Of their (as they used TO have, and per-
haps do still, in England) which they sold on
their return, TO great advantage, particularly the
lads Of the party who intrnsted theirs TO lad of
their acquaintance, to retail for them, on shares in
an old grist-mill Equally refreshing agrculturaly
in farming making maple sugar shooting geese etc.
Ii is astonishing how renumeratye these undertake
ings always prove-in stories; very astonishing Mt
times, it is pity not all living III oryand.
say, on Elm Island, ancng Mr.. Kellogg's imaginary
parishiOneTs For who would not rather get rich by
farming than ScTawl strange words with barbar-
GUS pen" or even such encouraging words as Mr..
Kellogg writes, the moral OF which may DO packed
into the saying Of Hamlet, Thrift, thrift, Horatio"
If all good Americans go 10 Paris before or after
death, il is but natural that they should desire TO
know something about it in advance. There are
Guide Books enough for Patr and MdteJdmilids. but
such work as Messrs, Hurd g. Houghon have pub
lished under the title of an american Family In
Paris" is novelty 1t may be characterized briefly
asa Chds Hand Book. its chief object being to de-
scribe the city in general and its most noted oca-
ties in particular, taking in at the same time its en-
virons. The writer processes to perceive the valuc
of accuracy and while trusting to memory for such
passages of history familiar to grown persons
and TO the same authority for local descriptions
TO which the recOections of more than one visit
in Paris have contributed, has consulted such trusty
volumes as those of Martin, Thierry, and
Madame Campan, besides Smiles's History
of tho Huguenotsn and Whites Massacre
of St. Bartholomew" We are not prepared to vouch
for the accuracy of the work without more exami-
nation than we can ut present bestow upon it,; but