REFEEENCE-BOONS.—Chief among the reference-books of the year, which are now
beginning to appear in considerable numbers, must be mentioned The Post Office London Directory, 1698 (Kelly), of which the ninety-ninth annual edition is now issued. Of this most useful book one can only say that it is as well done as ever. —Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage, 1898, is with us again. The new feature is the list of tradesmen who hold Royal Warrants. The preface gives a judicious patronage to the movement among the Baronets.—Hazell's Annual is always the place to turn to for short, up-to-date information. Short and up-to-date views are, of course, not always the final views, but they are what we want to get from a book like Hazeirs. The maps, though neces- sarily small, are very usefuL—Chamberes Biographical Dic- tionary (W. and R. Chambers) is full of information. It is, in effect, an abstract of the biographical section of the " En- cycloptedia," to which, however, a good deal of quite new matter has been added. There are ten thousand names in all. The examples we have tested give just the essential facts required from such a work.—The "News of the World" Almanaelc and Encyclo- pedia is not specially remarkable as an almanack, but it is stuffed full of interesting and important facts.
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