The San Francisco call., 1898-03-27

SATANs INVISIBLE WORLD DIS
 PLAYED-By W. T. Stead. New York:
 R. T. Fenno & Co. For sale at DoXey's s,
 Palace Hotel City.
 WITTY Frenchman once remarked
 ~ that MT. Steads cable address should n be registered as God, London"
 There is a good deal of Gallic ex- travagance in the idea. but it expresses more clearly than any other phrase the omniscience of the clever founder of the Review of Reviews. MT. Stead, as Lon- don journalist, first came prominently into notice some twelve years ago, when he startled the English-speaking world with boldly written expose of vice in London. The truth was set forth in his Maiden Tribute, and everybody knew It, but still the truth was a little too strong for the Nonconformist conscience. So Stead as a flrst-class misdemeanant, was sent to live comfortably in jail for a year, and when he came out his career was made.
 His conception of the Review of Re views was brilliant in the extreme, and his success amazed the doubters whJ looked askance at the magazine when it was started. On this side of the Allan tic, too, under the guidance of Dr. Albert Shaw, the Review of Reviews has met with equal favor. All this we owe direct ly to Stead, but unfortunately for his ptISOHdI pOpuldIlly III lIS oldlSSJ ue IliS taken upon himself the role of an Amer ican Savonarola, and in his free-handed trenchant style, is preaching little too strongly about our sins.
 Everybody remembers the little ale gory published some four years ago, rep resenting the position which Christ would occupy if he came to Chicago. The seething mass of vice and corruption which has accumulated in the great City " tho akpG rilfh1pSclIy fn public view, and naturally the Chicago ans did not like 1t at all. To-day it is the turn of New York, and the triumph of the Democratic party at the recent elections for the Mayoralty of New York has given the author his opportunity. The book was written before the result of the election was known, but the ex- posture of the Tammany Hall methods gains added importance because of the return of this faction to power.
 The volume opens with a rather pie tnresque sketch of New York, as seen from the bay at night, Bartholdi's colos sal monument of Liberty illumining the gateway of the sea, and welcoming all corners to the land of Liberty Then Stead, having created very pretty pie ture, goes on to destroy the Illusion. He has got hold of report of the Lexow Commission of inquiry into the condition of New York, which sat during 1894 and 1895, and nearly the whole of the book is made up of extracts from these bulky volumes.
 It is not very pleasant reading certain ly, for every form of corruption of which Q corrupt police force could be guilty is exposed. Witness after witness testified how the police openly fattened upon the keepers of gambling saloons and disor- derly houses, how every form of vice was licensed and could be carried on with inn punity as long as the captain of the pre- cinct was sufficiently bribed. Disclosures of this kind are Steads metier. and, as in the case of the Chicago book, he does not fail to emphasize all the more brutal and revolting features of, the case These charges, of course. are familiar to all American readers, and no end is to be gained by reviving them here.
 More interesting, because less repulsive Is the sketch of the origin of the great political organization known as Tamma- ny. St. Tammany, the only native Amer ican who has ever been canonized. was according to the legend. Delaware h. dian, who, long before the days of Euro pean occupation, lived with his tribe In New Jersey. He achieved his celebrity through a terrible conflict which he had with the devil. It was a regular pitched battle, and, though 1ammany suffered