y enactments of the European nations when confronted by the
emergencies of war, and by the abolition of liquor in a large number of
American states for purely practical reasons. All these things point to
a general recognition of liquor as a foe to governmental and industrial
welfare. Mr. Harrington's style in this essay is clear and in most
respects commendable; though certain passages might gain force and
dignity through a less colloquial manner. In particular, we must protest
against the repeated use of the vulgarism =booze=, a word probably
brought into public favour by the new school of gutter evangelism,
whose chief exponent is the Reverend William Sunday. The verb =to
booze=, =boose=, or =bouse=, meaning "to drink immoderately," and the
adjective =boozy=, =boosy=, or =bousy=, meaning "drunken," are by no
means new to our language, Dryden having written the form =bousy= in
some of his verses; but =booze= as a noun signifying "liquor" is
certainly too vulgar a word for constant employment in any formal
literary composition. Another essay of Mr. Harrington's is "The Divine
Book," a plea for the restoration of the Bible as a source of popular
reading and arbiter of moral conduct. Whatever may be the opinion of the
searching critic regarding the place of the Scriptures in the world of
fact, it is undeniably true that a closer study of the revered volume,
and a stricter adherence to its best precepts, would do much toward
mending the faults of a loose age. We have yet to find a more
efficacious means of imparting virtue and contentment of heart to the
masses of mankind. "Pioneers of New England," an article by Alice M.
Hamlet, gives much interesting information concerning the sturdy
settlers of New Hampshire and Vermont. In the unyielding struggles of
these unsung heroes against the sting of hardship and the asperity of
primeval Nature, we may discern more than a trace of that divine fire of
conquest which has made the Anglo-Saxon the empire builder of all the
ages. In Mr. Harrington's editorial column there is much discussion of a
proposed "International Amateur Press Association," but we fail to
perceive why such an innovation is needed, now that the United has
opened itself unreservedly to residents of all the countries of the
globe.

* * * * *

=Merry Minutes= for November is a clever publication of
semi-professional character, edited by Miss Margaret Trafford of London,
and containi