The times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1897-1901, 1900-05-20

| was held to raise seveDty-five dollars for
| the church, and cost the man who no ised
| it something more that one hundred dol
lars in spoiled furniture and 9TH
| err damages, when he came to foot the
bill. Another is sly hit at the political
methods of our cities, and another deals
with gentleman who believed in utilita-
! rian Christmas presents. And one at least
/ .-the one dealing with 1.-THE Book Sales of
Mr.. Peters SOLID chunk OF Phi
| io:ophy which is wei worth quoting in
Sunday newspaper, for the sake OF the
food for moral reflection it affords:
| The large generosity OF persons who never give
[ to. but often identified with. churches, Us
ptGls, associations OF philanthropic intent OF one
kind and another, in Dumfries Corners as else
where is frequently the cause OF the embarrdss-
went TO persons who do give without being lavish
| VI the so-called influence of their names lheIe
are quite dozen individuals out OF the 4o,Wy
| souls who live in that favored town VINO ma IL
convenient to give away much as $500 annually
| for the maintenance of milk dispensarles, nos
ptals, and other deserving enterprises OF similar
| nature for the needy. Yet at the close OF each
! fiscal wear those who have given to this extent
| are invariably confronted by reports issued by
officials of the various Institutions. frankly con
Tossing failure to make both ends meet, and every
! body wonders why interest has not been
| taken Surely we have loaned names the:
| say 1t never occurs to anybody that one sue
| cessfu charity is better than six failures IL
has never entered into the minds OF the managers
| of these enterprises that man disposed 10 give
away $500 could make his contribution 10 the pub
| lie welfare more effcacous by giving the whoic
| to one institution instead of dividing 1t amohs
| twenty.
However human nature is the same everywhere,
and until the crack of doom sounds mankind VIII
| be found undertaking more charity than it can
carry through successfully, not only in LGimfries
| Corners. but everywhere else. 1here Is
\ more than ten-thousand-d dollar town in ex-
| istence which has accepted one-hundred-thon-
sand-dollar hospital from generously disposed ci.
liens, and the other citizens thereof have promptly
hailed their benefactor's with loud aS eiciIn
| but the one-hundred. thOusand-dollar hospital
which might have been fifty thousand-dollar nos,
pital, with an endowment OF fifty thousand
| more TO make it self-supporting, has
| tendency to ruin other charities quite AS
| worthy, because its maintenance pumps dry the
| pockets of those who have to give. 1t IS
| an ungrateful task to critieise even mistaken
| ly generous person; and man being by nature
| prone to thoughtess judgments. the critic oil
| philanthropst who spends million of dollars to
| provide tortoise-shel combs for bad beggars
! would shortly find himself in hot water
| Amateur philanthropists will Please no.
| tice. New York. Harper Bros sl.s9.)
"A Master of Craft" by W. w. Jacobs.
author of Many Cargoes," is very
| much tangled sailors yarn, and would
! be improved by being reconstructed
by practiced playwright and put OH the
| stage as farce. There are some good
dramatic situations in t-notably that OF
| the sailor who. in the embarrassment OF
being engaged to three women at once, de-
] termines to get himself drowned and stay
| drowned for six months, reappearing at
the end of that time in the character of an
| Enoch Arden-but there is very little
character drawing, and it would take
Bowditch's Navigator to explore the plot.
I Frederick A
| pany.)
For the Queen in South Africa" by Ca
| ryl Davis Haskins. is a book OF stories OF
fighting, and the worst thing about it is the
title which is Clearly misleading The
| reader thinks he is going to get book
! about the present war. and II is nothing OF
the kind. Only two of the tales deal with
the present conflict; the others have to do
| with Zulu wars OF the past and one is
based on the part which Louis Napoleon,
| the Prince Imperial, took in the campaign
I against Cetewayo.
/ There are six stories in all. and most OF
them are dramatic and forceful. They are
| full of British bulldog pluck, and some of
| them have the camaraderie of the public
schools in their atmosphere. Notably is
| this true CT the first. called The FULL
Back Tells the Story 1t deals with the
adventures OF a newly made subaltern,
sent almost from the football ground TO
| South Africa. Perhaps the most serious
| and dramatic of the six is Judge Not
| which has for its c~.:rai motive the broken
| career of a young officer all but convicted
| of cowardice, but redeeming his reputation
by the last act Of his life. The motive is
not new one. but it is worked out in an
original and very impressive way. Blood
Will Tell is the story of an American
| born Irishman and his adventures in the
| Boer war, and 1.-The Unrecorded Cross" has
/! an American hero in it, and a lot Of des-
perate fighting, splendidly described. tBos-
ton: Little, Brown & Co. sLoo.)
| 1.-THE Queens Garden study of New
| Orleans life by NJ. E, NJ. Davis, is an ex-
quisitely charming little love story which
| may perhaps be called the authors best
work. 1t is sort of modern fairy tale in
| the form of romance. The dction is
dainty, the conception almost daringly po-
| etic, and the misunderstanding fnsly
| done. AS the charm of the story lies
mainly in the way II is told, it will detract
nothing from the interest Of the reader to
give slight sketch of the plot. The hero
| inc, Noel Lepeyre, is an orphan girl con-
| fided to the care of an aunt whom she has
never seen, but who was her fathers only
sister Her father, a Creole married to an
| American wife, has often told the girl In
her childhood, fairy tale whoze scene Is
| a garden, and whose dramatis personae are
| himself, his sister, and fairy prince.
| This garden is infinitely described. When
| Noel arrives at her aunt's house she finds
| there only the old mulatto woman who has
| been her aunt's companion from childhood;
the mistress of the house has yellow fever,
and the young guest is perforce isolated
{, in one wing of the mansion and given only