CURRENT _ LITERATURE.
The Knobstick. By C. Allen Clarke. (John Heywood, Man- chester.)—The Knobstick is a povterful story, indeed one of the beat descriptions we have met for years of some phases of the labour problem. It represents the labourer's side thoroughly, and in depicting the struggles, the hardships, the grim endurance, and the atmosphere of squalid vice of a manufacturing town, our author has dipped a pen of unusual vigour in ink of an acid and biting nature. Nor are the artistic points of a story wanting. The "Knobstick "is a personality of great interest, a man who has suffered, and suffered the more keenly that his feelings are acute, his sense of the ideal and beautiful is high, and his nature nobly tender and manly. His love-story is most pathetic and in accordance with his character, and it stands out in admirable
relief to the background of Lancashire mill-life, with its strikes, weddings, funerals,—a background which is brought very near to
us with its strong colouring and vigorous outlines. The style is nervous, clear, and always to the point, and as capable of render- ing the rough humour and vitality of Lancashire folks as the sombre shades and tragedies of a hard existence. The contrast between the crowded sordid life and inanimate nature, and generally the repellent aspects of the operative's life, is often insisted upon by C. Allen Clarke, who has certainly succeeded in painting a striking, if somewhat one-sided, view of labour and its realities, and its wrongs.
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