The Portland daily press., 1884-08-02

free trade will not tend to lower the wages of
workmen, We are glad that this issue is soon
to be tried before and by the American people,
and we have no doubt that the principle of
protection to American Industries will receive
the endorsement of decided majority.
The author OF "Lal" has busy brain and
has been long well-known to the people of this
and other countries as distinguished man of
science; but we believe he now appears for the
hrst time as worker in the field of fiction. 1t
10 petty certain that so eminent a pathologist
as DIR. Hammond, and especially one who has
devoted SO much of his attention to nerves
must be deep and successful student of hu-
man nature: and accordingly we find him in
this book amusing himself by an analysis of
several marked and peculiar characters. We
say amusing himself, for there appears to be
no great lesson taught in it, no important OBJ
1ect aimed at in writing it, and certainly the
author could scarcely hope to make of it a
great financial success in these days of the del
uge OF novels, all interesting to various classes
OF readers, and most of them Wishy-washy
enough to satisfy the INDECENT mental habit Of
the majority. The scene is laid In that field
80 well worked by Bret Harte and some others
the Western mining camp, and what will
strike the reader as peculiar is that the author
has succeeded in extracting no humor out of
the characters of such locality. The book is
well-written, the individuals of the story are
drawn remarkably well, and will stick in thu
recollection, which is enough to entitle "Lal"
TO some distinction. The author makes one Of
his persons say, The novel should, of course
depict life, and am not 30 gqueamish as to
exclude all ignoble natures, but these should
always be subordinate TO those better types OF
humanity of which the world is full, and
which. when well conceived and described, al
ways give pleasure as well as instruction to the
reader" This course DIR. Hammond has sue
cesstully pursued in his novel,
Tha 1-;oodn "a xxy;lk:. N.,1.- -, -,
name is Legion-will hail the new novel from
his pen, II Say No, or, The Love Letter An
swered," with positive pleasure. 1t is in his
old-time mysterious vein and keeps one in ex-
pectation from first to last He opens with a
delicious, midnight, boarding-school-b bedroom
scene, which might have furnished the mate
rial for an innocent, bread-and butter canto of
Don Juan; but plunges without delay into a
dark and horrid murder done a dozen years be-
fore, the varied effects OF which give the tinge
to the whole story. The author is SO we'll
known and so generally read and admired that
1t ia only necessary TO say that this last work is
quite up to his former ones and will arouse the
same interest from precisely the same causes.
A curious little book is 1.-THE Miz.Maze," a
Story by Nine Authors. The ladies who wrote
1t give their real names, but do not indicate
what special share each had in the lola pod
rida" served to us. The story is in the form of
letters, and the correspondence is placed in
these various hands $50 that there may be the
difference that real life might produce in style
and way of thinking" Cooperative work of
various kinds Is apparently popular in modern
literature, but few specimens of this sort of
patchwork are better than curious.
A very excellent little Sundsy.school Song
book has been recently published by Oliver
Ditson & Co., entitled "Song- Worship" It Is
prepared by Mr.. L. o. Emerson and Mr.. W.
r. Sherwin, who are both eminently fitted for
the task. The authors have endeavored to lift
the service of song for the Sunday-school be-
yond the ordinary grade, and this book will be
found to be rich in hymns of sterling merit 1t
will tend to mould the taste and educate both
mind and heart toward better conception of
the true use of sacred song.