15 FEBRUARY 1902, Page 24

On Commando, By George Hansby Russell. (Hutchinson and Co. 6s.)—Mr.

Russell has applied to an episode of the South African War something of the dramatic invention of Mr. Stanley Weyman. His heroine, Mary Lorimer, is a charming English girl roughly wooed by a Boer commandant on the one hand, and chivalrously by an English officer on the other. The moment of the story is that of the declaration of war. People of all sorts of nationalities are brought together,—English, Scotch, Irish, American, French, Bcer, Zulu, Kaffir, and Hottentot. There is a continual movement of plot, counterplot, escape, pursuit, capture, and surprise ; and, we are happy to say, a conclusion that gives the heroine to the Englishman.