The age-herald., 1902-03-16
Lady of New Orleans.

Colonel Marcellus E. Thornton, a well known figure in Georgia journalistic cir cle of a generation ago, has issued an- other of his interesting novels from the Abbey Press, New York, called "The Lady of New Orleans" In many respects this is one of the most rem arkable stor- ies published within the past twenty years. It deals with the modern type of money getting, and looking a bit into the future makes the present average millionaire appear financial pigmy com pared to the modern Monte Cristo, as described by Colonel Thornton. At the same time, with the marvellous resources of the American continent, there is noth- ing at all inconsistent in the theme as discussed by him. He depicts in vivid fashion the gayety of life in New Or leans, and some of the principal chap ters1 are laid in that historic city.
 Alpha Milyard is an ambitious young lawyer who becomes entangled with a beautiful Jewess Bertha Rosenstein, and this unsought alliance leads to many em- barrassing situations which are intro duced for the purpose of proving the hero of a high type of a gentleman.
 While endeavors are making to estab- fish the character of Millyard the Lady of New Orleans appears. Millyard is to be tried for his peculiar part in a series of adventures on Bertha's account, and his newly found friend, a beautiful heir ess of the Crescent City offers to go on his bond of release for no other req son than that it had come to her that he was gentleman.
 Millyard, unaware of her antecedents finally marries her, and with her ample means begins the amassing of the most colossal fortune known of all ages. He invests $10O,OOO in a North Carolina mine of green diamonds. known to science as "Hiddenite" after Prof. Hidden who dis covered the gems.
 Living for a period in Paris and coming later to New York, Millyard gives a grand social function in the Metropolis at which his wife is recognized by her cousin, a waiter employed for the occa- sion, and society is aghast on the instant for the unmasking of her origin is soon public property.
 True to his manhood Millyard refuses to believe the story, for he idolizes his wife and their two children. Going back to New Orleans, he visits his new min ing venture in North Carolina enroute which has now grown so productive as to startle all who know of it.
 There are introduced a number of uni
 
 art of the author, among them Galen Dalgal, a dream o-maniac," who saw things" in his sleep that always came true. Another character could see into the ground, and these peculiar people are grouped around the mines in de- cidedly interesting manner that gives color and picturesque value to the story.
 Incidentally there is also introduced Georgia lynching, a negro being the us- ual cause for the usual crime upon the mother and sister of the hero. This forms one of the most dramatic portions of the book. The author makes no Justification of lynching, but draws so true a picture that it must be a strange person indeed who could cavil at the end of the trag- edy. The author departs radically in this lynching scene, in that he depicts most graphically the crime itself.
 Whatever of criticism may be offered for Col. Thornton's dramatic realism if cannot be said that there is one sugRes- tion of impurty in his work. He has called a spade a spade, and "pointed a moral to adorn a tale" The cautious may draw conclusions that are not even favorable to the book, but the writer has not hesitated to speak boldly of a condition that is not a theory There is an evident lack of "conscious at- tempt at the highly literary, through out, 1t being simple narrative simply told. It is this plain dealing in plain words that makes The Lady of New Orleans" so eminent success.
 CHARLES THOMAS LOGAN