The age-herald., 1901-03-31
Washington as Running his ofnce on strict business principles"
MIR. AsToR,s STUPID BOOK.
One Story Is an unexoiting Old Manu-
 scrip and One Has Kidd as Hero.

From the New York Evening Journal
 William Waldorf Astor's "Pharaoh's Daughter and Other Stories" has made it's appearance in this country. in spite of the following stipulations which he made: @
 The volume shall not be reprinted in the United States.
 It shall not be placed on sale in the United States.
 It shall not be advertised in the United States.
 It shall not get into the United States if the author can prevent il.
 The volume contains something more than 200 pages-twelve stories and twenty
 five ilustratous Three of the stories concern Cliefden, or Cliveden, MT. Astor's palatial estate, and savor somewhat of advertising.
 Daughter" "The Ghosts of Austerlitz," Monsieur de Neron," "The Romance of 1 Cliveden," The Red Dwarf of Raben- stein' "Forza del Destino, ''The Wrath of Cliveden Reach Under the Black Flag" "Brabantio's Love- 'Clieiden Lights and Shades, The Confession of Rui, the Priest" and Madame Recaml- CTS Secret"
 In the matter of illustrations there is nothing remarkable in them until the readers fortitude has enabled him to reach page 192 in the story of "Braban- l tios Love" There the reader finds him l self face to face with a mermaid decided ly out of her element. This young wom- an. clad only in the rainy-day garb com mon to her kind, is portrayed standing on the end of her bifurcated neither mem l bers, leaning for support, and she seems to need it. against a cluster of pillars.
 Beyond is seen the water, with gon- dola in the middle distance from which the young person has wandered. The expression on the mermaid's face is simi- lar to that to be observed on the faces of fishes when all the water is drawn out of the aquarium
 "PharaoRs Daughter" Is supposed to be a translation from a Greek manu- script of the twelfth century. The trans | lated manuscript subterfuge is one ire 1 quently adopted. as it places the burden of a poor story either upon the manu- script or upon the defenseless translator In a few preliminary sentences MT. Astor sets forth that he has left the transla- ton practically as the classical authorl- ty" returned it to him. Fearing per haps. that he had given the class cal authority" too much prominence. Mir. As tor terminates the prologue by the pleas ing little use of a Latin word "l3cunGc, just to show he, too, is up in the cjas- sics He might have said ''hiatuses' but for tha:
 At one point in "Paraohs Daughters." MT Astor. or his translator, thought fully notes that three lines of the nan uscript have been effaced 1t had been much better if pages had suffered offacc- mer:.
 The second 9ry to avoid confusion in time, is care dated December g. 1S92, and turns frcia mummy cases to the cosy piccadilly bacholo apartments of Captain Blythe. formerly of the Tenth Rifles. The captain is perusing Thieis' Aus terlitz" the history of Napolcon's cam paigns. and for all the reader knows, he suddenly falls asleep.
 In brief, the story tells of the relncar- nation of Nero, some very nice talks with him in very nice English and the burning of the Tuillories There is p.cture of Mir. Nero at the window but no augges- ton of a fiddle The old gentleman sends his tale with the information that Ae fears Neron, and for that reason always sleeps with a revolver beneath his pillow
 MT. Astor cannot let the thing end without a thrust at Americans He has the old man speak of the "cXpressvt vernacular' of Americans. that the American revolver mems business every time" The last thing :u the story an exclamation point after the word time It is just one instant anterior 10 the readers exclamation
 In Under the Black Flag Me Asto" comes over to America, setting his scene in November. 1700 "at the season of rcd dening leaves, the literary longest-Hay- round for autumn, in the Anelo-Dutch colony of New York. He has nenned foc his English brothers a description of Manhattan Island at this period. Captain Kidd and his long, low, ralSish craft, carronades, skull-and-bones flags, treas ure and other piratical properties embel- fish the tale.
 When the story opens the colony is ox periencing sharp emotion upon learn ing that Captain Kidd's pirate sloop with himself and his bloody crew is casting anchor in the incomparable beauty and the autumnal pathos of thsi' midst"
 The story begins with a rendezvous be-