Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-09-27

HIS GREAT ADVENTURE. BY Robert
Herrick. author of Together. ETC.
New York: The Macmillan Com
pany.
n DOwN-AND-OUT young play
~ wright, standing In the neigh
borhood Of his New York lodg-
ing place, Is snatched out OF
his listless and gloomy self
absorption by seeing man near him ran
10 the street in some sort of sickness. he
helps the stranger to his own ROOM
where. in great distress of mind. the man
EFFORTS from him the promise to do GER
tain thing which he is able to describe In
only broken phrases and half-intelhgiole
words The man dies and young Brain
ard sets out to make good his promise.
The adventure sends him in great haste
across the continent to the strangers OF
fee in San Francisco There he Is TO
open a safe and to take from 1t certain
moneys and papers, before these shaH
have been seized by some very made
auately described hostile agents These
moneys and papers are to be delivered
10 Melody" That is ADJUST Melody
The adventure proceeds. OF course, on
the pursuit of Melody The search
covers the southwest. enters Mexico,
crosses 10 Paris, and recrosses to New
York Trailing young Brainard much OF
the time are the enemies over whom
the dying man was In such distress. In
New York Brainard waits for Melody TO
rise to the surface of the tremendous
agitation which he has stirred up over
her case. In the meantime of this wait
ng he goes into the QulXotic business OF
building peoples theater, of cleaning
up the stage. of making it accessible to
those most in need of wholesome amuse-
ment incidentally, here, he convinces
himself OF the futilty of this esthetc
and Intellectual movement applied to
what is commonly called the masses.
This experiment of the peoples theater
proves TO be the means of discovering
Melody" From this point on the ro-
nance leaps to a conventional issue. rms
Is the story in barest outline. His
Great Adventure is, in every respect, so
different from this writer's other novels
that one suspects Mr.. Herrick of having
a little adventure on his own account AS
If. for the time being. he had packed
away studies and types and real
ISM and serious purposes" and all the
rest OF il. just for the fun of inventing
a really romantic adventure, one of the
sort that makes no fuss over little lapSeS
of logic, one that is indulgent toward the
hobnobbing of drama with something that
looks remarkably like melodrama, one
that trusts its readers to believe the un-
believable.
THE OLD COLONIAL SYSTEM, 1890
1854. BY George Louis Beer. author
of The Origins of the British
Colonial System" etc. New York:
The Macmillan Company.
The British colonial system is in eff
feet the concrete expression of England's
desire TO establish commercial empire
OF such an extent and such nature as
10 render Great Britain. from a CONNER
cia standpoint, self sufficient and to the
greatest possible degree economically
Independent. Out Of this fundamental
desire sprang the vision of commercial
expansion. From this vision grew plans
that gradually merged into broad field
OF experimental practices. These, in turn,
crystalliZed into a body of laws and reg
ulations-tested. organized. interdepend-
ent regulations bearing directly upon the
manifold conditions out of which COM
IT. ercial empire was to be achieved and
maintained. This finally complex sys-
tenn OF regulations underlying the COM
mercial expansion of England is the Co
lonial system" whose establishment de-
velopment and operation this exhaustive
investigation seeks to describe. The study
covers the second half Of the seventeenth
century and the first half OF the eight
eenth.. a period in which the imperial
policy Of England was most alive and
forthgoing. Two large volumes cover the
important and significant facts Of this
imperial policy. The first OF these vol
umes discusses the broad fundamental
practices Of the system, defining each In
it's specific aim, application and effect.
Included here are the trade and naviga-
ton acts. the means OF imperial defense,
the economic resources of the colonies
and their classification upon this basis
according to their imperial value, the
slave trade. the fiscal system OF Eng
land In its adjustment to a scheme OF
imperial finance. the local administrative
machinery in its relation to parliament
and the crown The second volume fol-
lows In full and large detail the working
out Of this system 10 the various colo
MES, with their widely differing economic
resources-in Jamaica and the outlying
islands. in Virginia, Maryland. the Caro-
nnas in Newfoundland and New Eng
land The investigation is in the main
drawn from an immense body of original
sources. these scattered and difficult of
approach Aside from the sheer indus
try involved in this undertaking, 1t Is
marked by scholarly discrimination and
by the intellectual judgment OF the SCI
entifc student. While the book offers an
abundance OF material for the political
controversies OF free trader and protec-
ZIONIST, the author himself enters no dis