Birmingham age-herald., 1895-03-10
GOSSIP FROM BOOKLAND.

l IS DCI6 pam 1AO10S, q SlCEY Ol American life looking forward a century. | by Benjamin Rush Davenport, author of s'Best Fifty Books.'
 The work may at least claim novelty, if l no more, in it's favor, and possibly will | please the reading public, as it is in the l form of love story with a fairly good | structure in the way of plot.
 The author has rather reverted the order | of imagiuings and hopes of those who have | peered into the misty future and written l of what they have seen, by not enumerat- I ing all those desirable snd yet vague pres- | ent impossibilities as in actual ordinary | use in the century to come; in fact, pessi- | mistic view is the authors, and he por- | trays from the present hopeless labor l situation desperate and fearful result, the lsnatural sequence of truste, monopolies, I etc. It is difficult as we sit in comfort and sease, with every liberty we desire, to real Iize even the rem otest possibility of such ldire calamity ever befalling the labor | classes of America as is predicted in this work in the form of "Bonds 5f Servitude, ' and yet the actual portrayal of such a status of affairs should at least secure ono desirable result for the author, namely: to make people, thoughtful people, ponder over, and carefully too, the serious | phases of our present labor problems.
 
 l. "Well, Jack, anyway there is very little | in a name. For all practical purposes the farming people have been slaves in America long before there was such a thing as a proprietor. We need not become so much excited about it. Your friends, the | farmers, willingly put their necks into the yoke and became slaves in ~all but name when they delegated to men in my posi- | tion, who at that time were manufacturers | in America, the right to force them to buy articles which to sustain life the farmers were obliged to have only from those man. ufacturers and at their prices, while the revenue derived by the farmers from the land and their own labor they had to pro- | cure at random from whom and upon such terms as the competition of alhthe farmers of the world made possible.'
 
 A very dainty little edition, in good paper and excellent type, is recent venture, though a modest one, by Putuam's s Sons, called "Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great, [" by Ebert Hubbard. This little work represents but cents monthly and the first number is treat, little gem.
 Hubbard to the homes and haunts oi vari- ous eminent persons; the first one is George Eliot, and while the author does not write with the tedious responsiveness of an en-
 cyclopeda he yet recalls many deligtful piquancy and refreshment to her endeared memory. The coming numbers will treat of Carlyle, Ruskin, Gladstone, Hugo, Shakespeare and others equally revered and dear. "Mr. Barnes of New York; is a gentle- man that will introduce with pleasure to any company the author of his being,
 Archibald Clavering Gunter, an author who has writton some rattling good stories.
 "Mr. Potter of Texas' follows next on the list, a story of thrilling interest. ",rhat Frenchman' exhibits the au-
 thor's wonderful resources. It deals ..-tw fL~- being first laid In Paris and then in Russia. Monsieur Maurice de Verney is the Lero. |, The details are worked up with surprising exactness until the climax, when Ora Lapuschkin, the fair loved one, is saved from mistaken patriotic deed. Ed ..'
 In the new work by this favorite author,
 '"rhe First of the English,' Mr. Gunter
 has given us one of the most romantic tales
 during the days of the good 'tQdeen Bess |s6f Engiand,s' Whenssthe inhabitants of ~the Netherlands, who had been accustomed to freedom, revolted against the tyranny of
 Spain and especially against the hated in-
 Q usition, the Duke of Alba's counsel was
 to suppress the ipsurrectlon forcibly and
 with rigor. Accordingly, when Philip II
 committed the matter to the hands of the
 Duke of Ava, he sent him to the Nether-
 lands with unlimited power and large
 military force. His first step was to estab-
 fish the "bloody council.' So cruel and
 outrageous were tQo aCtS or Lue Ouk6 OI
 Ava that many of the merchants and me-
 cnanics emigrated to England, and large
 mum bers abandoned their native land,
 while many enlisted under the banners of
 the prescribed princes, Louis and William
 of Orange. As symbol of his iron rule
 Alva caused statue to be cast, in which be
 was represented as trampling under foot
 two human figures, repres sntfng the mo-
 bles and people of the Netherlands; and
 this he set up in Antwerp. A crushing
 nr.r ,farx ~ H rn af0 bat
 his executioners shed more blood than his
 soldiers.
 No period of history, perhaps, could fur
 nish more dramatic and stirring incidents
 than this time of the Spanish domination of the Netherlands, and in "The First of
 the English" MT. Gunter has seized with
 great force and the very spirit of the times Of which he writes, hazardous adventures
 and incidents, the recital of which form most delightful work; book, breezy, pure
 and thoroughly healthy and entertaining from cover to cover, just the book you may safely suggest to friend to read, feeling sure that after its delightful perusal the reader will yearn to know more of the ter
 rible history of those times when Eng lands maritime supremacy first began to |-rise.
 At the opening of the work England is at peace with Spain, but "The First of the English, , Capt. Guy stanhope Chester ion board the Dover Lass, is cruising off the
 coast of Holland, just to keep an eye on the willy Ava. A terrib storm is raging, and
 the first night out from the white cliffs of England "The First of the English meets with his first noteworthy adventure. "A minute later the boatswain chambers back on board the Dover Lass and re- ports: We've got lem bothl' "'What are they7'
 .One's an enemy and ope's friend Who's the friendf'
 Dirk Duyvel and his band of sea beg gars; and Dirk's thunderin' mad and