s a very important work. The book is mainly biographical and
topical. Some of the topics discussed are: "The Slave Code"; "Slave
Insurrections"; "The Abolition of the Slave Trade"; "The Early
Convention Movement"; "The Failure of Reconstruction"; "The Negro as a
Soldier"; and "The Negro Church." These topics are independent of the
chapters which are more particularly chronological in treatment.

In the appendices we have several topics succinctly treated. Among these
are: "The Underground Railroad," "The Freedmen's Bureau," and, most
important and wholly new, a list of soldiers of color who have received
Congressional Medals of Honor, and the reasons for the bestowal.

The biographical sketches cover some twenty persons. Much of the
information in these sketches is not new, as would be expected regarding
such well-known persons as Frederick Douglass, John M. Langston, and
Paul Laurence Dunbar. On the other hand, Mr. Cromwell has given us very
valuable sketches of other important persons of whom much less is
generally known. Among these are Sojourner Truth, Edward Wilmot Blyden,
and Henry O. Tanner.

The book does not pretend to be the last word concerning the various
topics and persons discussed. Indeed, some of the topics have had fuller
treatment by the author in pamphlets and lectures. It is to be regretted
that the author did not feel justified in giving a more extensive
treatment, as the great store of his information would easily have
permitted him to do.

The book is exceptionally well illustrated, but it lacks information
regarding some of the illustrations. Not only are the readers of a book
entitled to know the source of the illustrations but in the case of
copies of paintings, and other works of art, the original artist is as
much entitled to credit as an author whose work is quoted or appropriated
to one's use.

_Negro Culture In West Africa_. By George W. Ellis, K.C., F.R.G.S. The
Neale Publishing Co., New York, 1914. 290 pages. $2.00 net.

This study by Mr. Ellis of the culture of West Africa as represented by
the Vai tribe, is valuable both as a document and as a scientific
treatment of an important phase of the color problem. As a document it
is an additional and a convincing piece of evidence of the ability of
the Negro to treat scientifically so intricate a problem as the rise,
development, and meaning of the social institutions of a people. Easy,
yet forceful in style; well documented with f