The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-29
Literary Lights and Shadohs
BY s. MAYS BALL


 as crooked as a corkscrew." Later the Con Man becomes the assistant to be- nevolent old Doctor Benedict wh om 1t paid better to fool people by selling them fake spectacles than to cheat them with cards. He exposes, does the Con Man, the innocent side-shows of the travelling circus and tells us that the largest profits of a circus of cer- tain type come from the confidence" outfits and crooked gambling games which accompany 1t, mentioning by name the few honorable exceptions to this rule The Con Man insists that the average chief of police, the justices of the peace and other officials were bought off when the circus struck town. With the mayor it was not so easy, but free tickets usually did the trick. The Con Man had friend who had six or seven medals for being mean. Though he earned a good living at the hell,' he made his wife play Circassian Beauty with the side-show forced that little woman to sit all afternoon and evening in one of those hot Circassian wigs for salary of $S per week."
 The Con Man doesn't believe that 1t is necessary to devise new tricks with which to entrap the unwary, that they still succumb readily to three-card monte and even the hoary gold brick industry. if properly presented. The book is full of fun and rich in ex- pressive phrases that the reader may be tempted to adopt into his vocabu- lary, such as
 "A grafter's dollar is greased."
 An honest dollar is the only dollar tn at don't do stunts around your pil- low at night"
 Don't keep a crooked game long in any one place. Your very success makes people shy of it."
 It is the safety of any con game that your sucker is generally your accom- plice."
 "There is no hunting in the world like hunting men,"
 The book Is illustrated by Glackens it Is well worth the price and time devoted to it's reading.
 'The Woman in Question: by John Reed
 Scott U..P. Lippincott Co)
 The last book this department was called upon to review, written by MT. Scott, was "Beatrix of Claire" fitting successor to "The Colonel of the Red Huzzars" In telling us all about '.Beatrix of Claire" the attempt was made by MT. Scott to prove, in fictional form, that Richard the Third of England had been by historians greatly maligned creature. In fact, we were all of us led
 
 Richard the Third instead of murdering any stray princes in the tower or wherever located really loved little chill dren and much preferred Christmas trees to massacres. Be that as it may, Mr. Scott has come down to these days in his latest book, ''The Woman in Ques- tion," as if she was not always-God bless 'em-the question!
 The scene of the new story Is western TDan cxlHyo nj a laws on the statute books against such scene-laying and MT. Scott must not be too harshy judged. It is obviously around Gettysburg and Pittsburg that the char acters operate in "The Woman in Ques- tion." Besides the hero, there are two fascinating widows, one of whom, as much as she and he may regret 1t, still has husband, who appears later to the widows natural disgust.
 The inopportune appearance of this hid den-you-can't t-find-the-bean husband helps to make the story. In fact, without him there would hardly be any excuse for the book at all.
 It was sometime prior to the begin ming of the story that the hero, one of the rich. nothing-elseto-do young men of America, had, while killing time on the Grand canal in Venice heard a wom- ans laugh, and had caught a glimpse of her in gondola You see the answer? The hero remembered that merry ha-ha, and also the fact that the desired wom- ans hair was black. Now listen to this: At the heros first meeting with that widow Qleep them apart, please) he rec ognized the laugh all right but strange as 1t may seem, as you read it here the lovely womans hair was red, and the real kind of red at that. Even the hid den husband was deceived by this change of hair color Who wouldn't be?
 Now, the awful part is this: The fact that the widow has a husband when she supposed him dead. comes to the lady too-entirely too-late, for be it known that she had fallen in love with the gal 1ant young hero. But does such a little thing as an inconvenent husband cause dismay to MT. Scott? Not at all Mir. Scott simply wipes that gentlemen, In the language of the street, from off the map, and all is well.
 'The Woman in Question" is a good summer novel. There are lots of people who read anything written by MT. Scott. To these Is presented "The Woman in Question" which Is in line with all of MT. Scott's previous productions. "Dick Wilmington" And Other Stories Charles E. Merrill Co.). This little volume contains five stories, all of which will no doubt in- 1ereSt the cn1ldren-1f there are any left in this day and generation. Young men and women engaged in the laudable undertaking of showing the children in sch ools how to get a good shot at life, tell us that the trend of primary reading appears to be more and more toward the use of as many elementary texts as possible. Such be- ing the case, this collection of five stories should please those for whom , the book is intended or those forced to do the much talked-of supplement tary reading.
 The book Is well gotten up thu printing is good; the volume is illus trated and cheap
 The book has been arranged and the stories collected by MT. Frank W. Howard.
 ''The Other Side of the Door," by Lucia Chamberlain Bob bs- Merrill Co.). Miss Lucia Chamberlain Is a young lady of Frisco. Before the recent death of her talented sister, Miss Lucia col laborated with the former. She presents now book done all by herself which is all right It involves murder mystery, somewhat different thank goodness-from the conyen- tional detective story. It is more a love story than a detective story | although we are furnished with thrills all right-a pretty good combination. ''The question that must give us 1 pause, compels us to point with alarm,'' l as the crossroads "Gazaboo" might l editorially say, is like this: There was q young chap, MT. John | AI.