Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-12-09

emplify the narrative style:
AS read in old monsstic lore
SO runs the legend of traditions,
Two hundred years ago. and more
Along pimeria's arid shore,
Were seen an hundred white-walled missions
Throughout the drear and desert lands,
Where roamed fierce tribes intent on pillage
From blancas SHOWS to elias sands
Trausfoumed by consecrated hands
Blooms fertile fields with careful tillage,
And where the iridescent morn
Once lii the waste with tinted lustres,
Amalthea filed her tabled horn
From meadows rank with tasseled corn,
And hillsdes flushed with purple clusters.
These verses open the poem entitled "Sut-
ter's Fort.
stood by the old forts crumbling wall,
On the eastern verge OF the town
The sun through clefts in the ruined hail.
Fecked with its light the rafters brown,
And sif'iDe with gold the oaken floor
Seemed TO burnish the place anew;
While out and in through the hall. closed door,
Building their nests, the swallows few.
The poem lei Rio Sacramento " thus
opens:
Where iee.cad SUBMITS greet the morn
And where the beetliDg crags look down
On dark blue lakes with sullen frown,
This bantling OF the clouds is born.
Forth from ITS granite cradle creeps-
At fret in play it laughs and leaps
And then in dusky pools it sleeps.
d iwn silent, sunless giens it glides
And under long sedge grasses hides,
Where aspen leaves like quivering wings
Quaver above its hidden springs.
From L. Prang & Co.. Boston, the we'll
known art publishers, we have samples of
their prize Christmas cards, in chrome work.
Taese are the result Of the last prize Christ
mas card exhibition held at the American
Art Gallery in New York in November, 1881
The highest prize was 50 600, and it was
taken by Miss Dora Wheeler for a Christ
mas design. A copy of this is among the art
specimens now on hand. The second and
third designs were by Miss l. B. Humphrey,
Boston, and the fourth by Alfred Fredericks
There are samples also of the four popular
prize cards fer which awards were made. All
these cards are elegant, and while the designs
are beautiful and artistic in high sense, we
must accord to the publishers full as much,
if not more credit, for the excellence of the
pelnt Of these cards in chromo.l TYPOGRAPHY.
Tbs London Queen was forced to confess that
In beauty OF execution, artistic cor option
and Imaginative rendering" the Prang work
distances anything known to the English
workers in this peculiar art. Christmas
cards are very properly taking the place
largely of more expensive gifts, and
their popularity evinces conviction
on the part Of the people that this form
OF friendships tribute is fully appre-
ciated by Americans. We can give room to
description of bat one of the cards for 1882,
that which took the first przs: "The lead.
lug thought symbolically rendered, is that of
the light Of the world rising to dissipate the
darkness which encompasses poverty.stricken
mankind. A desolate woman, standing on
the globe and leaning against barren, snow.
laden tree, gsZss intently in agony Of ex-
pectatl0n towards a vision in the clouds of
the Virgin with the Christ Child in her arms.
Two thiniy. clad little children, frightened by
what they do not understand, cling closely to
THAR p,pfher's side in search Of aid and ,,r,
lection. The contrast between these groups
one OF heavenly beauty and promise in sun
of light, the other of poverty. intense expecta-
ton, fear and desolstion, produces a most
striking effect. Both groups are surrounded
by floating clouds filed with joyous angels
and by border quite original in conception,
which completes the design most harmoni
ouly."
THE Friendship of Mary Russell Milford.
as Recorded in Letters from Her Literary
Correspondents" is volume edited by Rev.
A. G. LEstrange. 1t ia from the press of
Harper Bros, New York, and is for sale
bv A. L. Bancroft & Co, San Francisco.
Miss Milford was one of the best of the
female writers of her day, and among the
purest and best Of all time. She was charm
ing novelist Of high order of talent Born
in 1856; in 1S06 she had issued three volumes
of poems which met with severe criticism by
the journals of her native England, but sur
vived it all. Her "Foscari," Riepzi,"
Julian" and "Chsrles l." all tragedies,
were well received. These were followed by
her stories and sketches, and she soon estab-
lisbed strong claim upon the sympathies of
the people by her graphic style, her charming
simplicity and her purity of tone
and thought She drew to her lite
rsry celebrities, and her associates
were the most cultured and talented. These
letters to such woman. giving. as they do,
glimpse at her inner literary life, are full of
interest and bring the reader into contact
with the minds of such as NJ. St Quintin.
Goblet, Lord Holland. Weston, Grove, Bay
ley, Macready, kemble, DR.. Milman, Mrs.
Hemans, Douglas Jerrold, Miss Sec gwick,
Miss Martineau, Lady Dacre, Mrs. Trollope,
Tom Taylor, Miss Edgeworth, James Fields,
Miss De QaiOcey, Sergeant Talfourd, Mrs
Hewitt, and score of others.
'Those Children and their Teachers, !" is o
. story told by Byron A. Brooks, A. NJ, au-
thor of king Saul" tragedy. In msuy
respects it is remarkable work. Ii is an in
cisive, and in some parts, a bitter criticism. OF
our common school system as regards the
methods of teaching and the political control
of the offices sppurtenant to it. La
the form of story in which chill
,dren are the chief actors, the more
glazing errors of the school system are
lsid bare One class of private schools is
are by no means TO be understood as approx
ing all the attacks made, when We say that
the book Is full OF suggestion of truth. and
should be read by parents and teachers Slike
1t is nos even profoundly critical, but it is
plainly and sternly written, and deals with
subj acts that have in them gtound for
many of the complaints made. The volume
is from the press of G. p. Putnam's Sons,
New York, and is for sale by A. l.. Bancroft
& c.. San Francisco.
Frontier Army Sketches" by James W.
Steele, is the title of delightful book pre-.
senting an Interesting phase of American life
that has hitherto had its chief chronicer in
the dime novel and its most frequent inter.
prefer in the blood and terror drama. But
Mr. Steele has taken the subject up only to
elevate it, and gives US 10 graceful style and
graphic manner Efe-like, romantic, humorous
and tragic sketches from the pages Of truth
concerning the great frontier of our nation,
and shows us alike the delights, perils, loueli-
ness, grandeur, melancholy life, activity,
spirit, courage and glory Of the Soundless
plains OF the West. The book is from the
press of Jansen McClurg & Co, Chicago, and
is for sale by w. a. & c. 5. Houghten, Sa,-
ramento.
From W. a. & c. s. Houghtop, Sacra-
mento, we have Jansen. McClurg & Co.'s
(Chicsgol issue of the "Nonpareil Practical
Cock Book Isl 50) 1t is the recorded re.
sult of Twenty-Five years experience Of prac-
tical housekeeper, and of close observation of
German and French Kitchens during pro-
Ionyed stay in Europe. The work is good
one. and we believe it will prove an aid to
housewives To the making of cook books,
it would appear, there is no end, and that
there are many that have FLIED 10 field and
proven poor indeed is true, but an examine
ton of this work leaves q very favorable i'm
preston as to its practical usefulness.
"Tbe Art Amateur" Montague Marks,
publisher, New York; for December, con-
tains vigorous article on Hubert Herkomer,
with illustrations of his chisf paintings, in
Guiding particularly fine ful'page drawing