The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-08

, Charles is publisher who fights for sue- | cess-that is all he wants-and that ne gets. He gets it by giving the pubic what 1t wants. He gives all parts Of the public all that 1t wants all the time ana in the nick of time. The religious pubic must have from his hands it's religion pure and undeied. The vicious public must have it's scandal. vile and filthy The sporting public must have it's sport record | and its gaiety. The infant public must | have it's pap and nursery rhymes. The. | scientific public must have it's science. Old fashioned womanhood must have its homekeeping, housekeeping literature New fashioned wonnanhood must have its l suffragette progressive pahulum. Sir Charles gives AS freely to the good tendencies of humanity as to the bad. | His right hand deals principles of right | eousness and, his left deals deyiousness. His only plan and purpose Give the pub lie what it wants. His brothers who live by the standards of honor and the ideal, not to say of plain decency, try to bring Sir Charles to & sense of reprobateness of the unlversality of what he is pleased to call his principle-as well talk of baron of the tenth century of the renun- oiance becoming a reformer in the twen- tieth.
 Sir Charles: I've got my principles like l anybody else.''
 John Morgan: You've got too many principles. That's what's the matter with you. You've got one for the Mercury and arother for tfis Sunday rag
 Sir Charles: Don't be childish, Ton surely see. with your brains, that l can't be the same ill 40 different papers for 70 different publics. I give each what 1t wants"
 The woman that he loves tries to show Sir Charles the deviousness of his ways, the weirdness of entertaining so many convictions adversely set forth fin 70 diff ferent papers; she succeeds only in bring ing him up to this same wall
 sir Charles I've not changed. I've never made any pretensions I've never hidden anything. Iv never said l was moralist. Pve never posed as being bet ter than other people. But I've always |. maintained tho right of the public 10 have what they want, and my right 10 give them what they want.
 That Sir Charles has no ideals and no understanding of the idealist is hardly more fault of his than lack of ankle joints would be to a man born without those useful adjuncts of locomotion.
 That Arnold Bonnet makes this limi- tstion of Sir Charles conductive to con- edy goes without saying. Comedy with close lining of something more se- rious. Comedy graceful, cutting, keen as best sword play. "Perpetua,' by Dion Clayton Cathrop.
 John Lane Co, New York, sl.So)
 The hooks and corners of London. Any novel that let's one into these would be delightful. This one leads to the studio of Brian O'Cree, the chambers of John Diamond, the white apartments of Stella Daintry, No. 9 Park Lane; the left over cottage amid factories of Hog Lane, Hampshire. At the first blush readers are introduced to the delightful Perpetua | AF1r sft,u af hat fYV11f ness. called woman Perpetua at once begins her remarkable career by adopt ing father, not having one handy at the time of her mothers untimely decease. She chooses wisely, for one so unversed in the lore of the fathers. Her choice falls on the Irish artist, Brien O'Cree, gay young fellow with the heart of a child, the honor of knight of old
 By way of an aside: What would the English fiction maker do without the IHsh? Whener sayety. life, charm Is needed to tighten up British solidity in male or female of the fiction world, Ire ! land is drawn upon. England might grant home rule in recognition of Just that service.
 Perpetus grows wonderfully and de- velops a wondrous beauty under the fatherly care of Brian. with Stella Daintry 10 teach her the sweet, white ways of womanhood. Midway the book
 
 dark. with eyes of magic and lips | blood red.'
 The climax of joyousness is reached for the well assorted (since by choice instead of chance of birth) father and daughter. when the two join a travel Ing circus.
 Who has not desired to run away with a circus and yet remain respect able? Brian paints wonderful pictures of circus folks at home, in the tents, on the road, in the ring and wins fame and more money than even an Irshman can well get rid of. Perpetua makes life long friends of the chief of the van people-the splendiferous ring master, Monster Alphonse Lamballe and his good wife, Uranie, beloved and love- ly in the sight of her Alphonse, though driven from her role of tragedy queen by encroaching flesh. These chapters are worthy. Dickens at his best-and fitted to the modern taste. For, alas. how soon even the great gods of the fiction world grow grey and speak in more or less unknown tongues to new T generations.
 It is pity that MT. Calthrop could not have made his trule delightful book all together an excursion into the realms of joy. But instead he has given quite good slice of melodranna The villain, father of Perpetua, Russell Fanton by name, returns to claim the child that he has not known nourished; his shady I financial schemes and rascall,fes enmesn Brian and his mother, and bring Per petua herself to the deck accused Of mur- der and almost to- the hangman s moose. Brian, out of mighty love, djvines at once the true secret of the murder of Perpetuas young and drug-crazed hus- band, Saville Mender. The murderer be- ing no other than Perpetua's father. Jus. as Brian closes on the track of Russell Fenton and his tormenter and instigat)r, the ex-conyict Christian, the two villains make way with each other. Perpetua is free. At the door of Brians studio she re-enters life and happiness not now brian's adopted daughter, but wife. Virginia of the RhodeBians. By Cynthia ! Stockley (Dean Estes & Co, Boston, s1. .25.) Quick romance under the wild darkness of African nights and the heavy gold sunshine of Rhodesias in this volume of short stories. The stories are made out of the life lived by English folk far from home at war or at play in those Jew lands over which England plants her flag. These are just such records of ' rapid, real life romance as Kiping gave to the world with his; "Plaln Tales of The Hills." So much the same life and the same spirit is herein. that one cx- poets to meet Mrs. Hawkesby" at the next tea table or to sees"The Other Man grimly riding by.
 The stories are like those of Kipling only inasmuch as they grow out of the Iunvr Af