The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-08-03
THE NEW PUBLICATIONS.
SOME OF THE LATEST BOOKS OF
 THE SEASON.


 Felix, by Robert Hichens-The Sacrifice of she Shannon, by W. nbert Hick- man-A Few Remarks, by Simeon Ford-ProE Dextsr's Third in His Series of Yale BiSgraph,su and Annals -Other BoOks-The Magazines.
 A distinctly strong book is Felix by Robert Kitchens, published by F. A. Stokes Company, New York. It is as the New York Evening Sun says, "a powerful story" though mot a cheer full tale. But one doesn't look for that sort of thing from the author of The Green Carnation.' ~ Felix is not a healthy person. Mrs. Ismay and Lady Caroline are not healthy. The unfortu- nate pet dog Chicko is not healthy. The story is powerful, almost fascina- ting study of certain persons addicted to the drug habit" ..s k. ..-~
 Felix Wilding was an agreeable boy with pleasant manners and a strain of Spanish blood in him. Born in an Eng fish village and sent at the age of eigh- teen to study he was painfully conscious of his youth and ignorance. A meeting with garrulous old tailor who had once measured Balzac for a pair of trousers led him to study the works of that mighty genius. He hoped that the Human Comedy" would take the place of experience of life, ...-.. ... :. ..-
 This pretty theory broke down early. Felix fell in love with Valeria Ismey, the wife of London publisher, and a slave to morphine. The strongest pas sages in the story trace the steady de- gradation of this woman, and the phys ical and moral effects of the drug. The revelation is at a quiet seaside resort where Mrs. Ismey has gone after long illpess-the illness induced by hus- bands determined effort at the redemp- ton of a wife. Felix has been invited to the hotel for an over-Sunday stay. Only the maid is with Mrs. Ismey. The cure has not been permanent. In the terrible scene following the loss of a gold-cased morphia outfit in the sands the eyes of the boy are opened.
 The lonesome little mother is a con- start figure in the story. It is her pres ence in London as a patient in a surgi- cal ward which prevents a certain ill- judged trip to Paris-a trip planned when the boy feels impelled to take up the task of cure he believes to have been abandoned by sad-eyed husband.
 Felix" is one of the strongest char acters in recent fiction. The New York World says of it: 1t is. a fascinating tao unpleasant but for the art which ena- bles MT. Hichens to attach not to his own pages, but to the drug slavery it. self whatever is revolting in the tell ing.' j. '.s. a.3s
 Price $1.50; for sale at Judas.
 ,.sThe Sacrifice of the Shannon,'' by W. nbert Hickman; illustrated; pub- lished by Frederick A. Stokes company, New York. For sale by Judd; price. t s15O.
 This is a novel having to do with the ice crushers of Northumberland Strait. Mingled with impressions of the Won- dersm silence and resistless power of the ice Of the north are descriptions of the stirring deeds of the men and wo- men of this region of pure air.
 The heroine is one of those intrepid yachtswomen whose motto is Twin or drive her under," and her daring hand- ling of twenty e-footer in a race sailed in gale is one of the most strik- ing episodes in this tale of Nova Scotia A horse-woman, ski-runner able to go at7the rate of forty miles an hour and to make leap of fifty feet, a canoeist who laughs as she creeps upon half, decayed log and after an overturn in the rapids, Gertrude MacMiehael is cetainly novelty in fiction. She was moreover woman for whom every man in Caribou would imperil his life il necessary to save her from harm ol peril. V,
 The Shannon is one of a fleet of pow erful ice-crushing steamers, built ex- pressly for winter trips from Prince Ed. ward Island to the main Canadian coast "a splendid specimen of her kind. But a rival line is established, and one of it's steamers lilly adapted to fight the ice king is caught in floating ice field and is rapidly borne to the frozen north On board is the father Of the heroine and to save her father the Shannon is sent on its mission of deadly peril, with I the heroine on board. The attempted rescue coupled with a romantic love sto- ry make the tale one of rare interest to say nothing of the wonderful descrip- tive passages concerning the battles with the Ice and the tempests.
 "A very entertaining book is Simeon Ford's "A Few Remarks" published by Doubleday, Page & Company, New York,-a capital book for leisure mo- nents, divided into thirty-seven chap ters, each complete in itself and full of dry, quaint but delicious hunor. Il is issued in handsome style by the pub 7 fishers and is a volume of three hun dred and forty pages, in which MT Ford has included extracts from some of his after dinner speeches that have attracted most attention, together with other matters that in whole or in part have appeared in the newspapers and periodicals. MT. Ford besides being a noted after-dinner speaker is proprietor of the Grand Union Hotel. in Manhat. tan. He has achieved wide fame as a serious minded fun-maker Probably no man in New York is more widely sought after for banquet occasions than MT. Ford, and the noteworthy thing about it is, that his fame has come to him entirely unsought. He happened to