The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-11-20


dramatic critic OF the Tribune 50 years. He
was a youth Of 20 when he began the SER
vice; he is a mature man of 81 now. And
however people may have dissented' at
times from its judgments, ID has been gem
uine criticism that Mr.. Winter has sup
piled through these many years-not mere
scraps of gossip and haf-formed opinion.
And in addition he has written numerous
poems that will always be accounted of
more than ordinary value, and various ~
ographies and essays. So, for 'mIsspent"
life his has been, on the whole, Iemarka-
bly, fruitful. Like so many authors, Winter
was educated for the law, but he never
practiced it-or at least, only for a very
short time. His home has long been in
Staten Island-a location not very favora-
ble one would think, for evenings at the
theater, followed by midnights al news
paper desk, but somehow Mr. Winter has
managed it.
There are fashions in the book trade as
In everything else, and for several years
back what are known as nature books
have been in special request" Conse-
quently, in all the publishers lists, books
on flowers and birds and trees have been
putting forth quite profusely. The popular
claim Of these books, one and all, has been
that they enabled the reader to easily
identify in nature the objects treated of.
This claim they sought to fulfill partly by
description, and partly by pictures; but
description, at best, is an insure depend
ence in such matters and the pictures,
being for the most part mere drawings
reproduced in black and white, left much
to conjecture. So when you took your
book in hard and went forth to identify a
bird, tree, or flower you were very apt
to find that the object yof had selected
might lie one thing or another, you were
not quite sure which. Thus the first ma
ture' books still left an unmet want.
But an unmet want trade abhors; and
so, within few months there has begun
TO appear a series of mature" books with
pictures presenting natural objects in all
their natural colors. And these books
have a-double signifcance they not only
supply means of identifying flowers and
birds and the like that is nearly infallible,
but they mark a revolution in photography
and printing. l have just been looking
over the sheets of a forthcoming butterfly
hook, and when I thought of all it meant
1t seemed to me nothing less than mar
Vicious. Here was the actual butterfly in
all the minutiae of his form and all the
variety and deicacy of his color. And so
cheaply is this result achieved that a
book containing some fifty of these colored
illustrations will retail at not to exceed
50; whereas, if the pictures were ltho-
graphed, which was the only process for
such work until lately, such a book would
cost anywhere from Klree to fifteen times
that sum; and this means of course, that
it could be bought only by few special
lists and few book fanc.ers. Under the
new process the butterfly is photographed
on plates, three photographs being made
of EACH so varied as to produce differ
ent distributions of color; then there is a
separate printing in a single color from
each of the three plates thus obtained.
Hence, simply three colors, by the mere
shading and mingling of the printing, pro-
duce all the manifold tints shown in the
finished result. OF course, the photog-
raphy, and then the printing, is an art by
itself; and only an expert which I am
not, could set it forth in the full wonder
of its details. But any amateur can APP
preciate the result; there is the natural
object, unmistakable, in all the beauty of
life. There have already been two bird
books published that were illustrated in
this way; and they are quite remarkable,
but rather less remarkable, l think than
this butterfly book. The new process is
next to be tried, l understand, in Elustrat-
ing the wild flowers. Here 1t will be espe-
cially valuable; for nature students have
found flowers the most difficult of all OBJ
jects to Identify from book descriptions.
Since Mark .Twains recent announce
ment of his final retirement from the
lecture platform regret has been ex-
pressed in England that of all English
speaking nations the only one in which
Mark Twain had never appeared as a
lecturer should be England Itself The
fact is rather singular. Mark Twain's
books have had even heartier apprecia-
ton in England than here; the man Hmm
self has long been well known and greatly
liked there. Therefore, it IS rather strange
that England should always have been
avoided by him in his lecture tours. In his
early days, the experience of Artemus
Ward might naturally have been an en-
enlargement TO him TO try his fortune
there. They were friends; and In other
directions Artemus was somewhat of an
exemplar to him. 1t was the latter part
of 1866 that Ward set al England roaring
with delight over his humorous lectures;
and it was about the same time that Mark
Twain made his first venture as a lectur-
er. He had just returned from a six
months sojourn in the Hawaiian Islands
and his first lectures were delivered In
California and Nevada The next year he
made the journey that supplied the mate
RAJ for THE, Innocents Abroad" Ward,
the meanwhile, had had three months of
made a lot of money; then the last. rem
nant OF his health, which had long been
very delicate, gave way and in March,
1867, still in England, he died.
George Gissing is not the only English
man of that femiiy name who is a fruitful
producer of novels. Georges choice of a
somewhat sensational feld-iife IN the
more wretched quarters of London-has
made him the better known, but there is
an Algernon Gissing, who has averaged a
novel q year during the last ten years.
The two are brothers, l think; but of that
l am not quite certain. They were both
born at Wakefield, England, and Algernou
is the younger by three years. He has
none of Georges fondness for London; he
lives up near the Scottish border, among
the hills, and the titles "A Village Hamp-
den" and "A Mooriand Idyl" indicate suf-
hciently in what direction his taste and
pen run. He began life as a solicitor, but
has been employed wholly in authorship
since 1887. II is not generally known 1
think. that George Gissing practically be-
Il 1itarorxr cappnr In TVpffaI