Blackbirding in the South Pacific. By W. B. Churchward. (Swan
Sonnensohein and Co.)—A black man of the name of Bruce, born in England, on reaching extreme old age, recounts his adventures and his villainies to an Englishman in Samoa. " Blackbirding " in the South Pacific means kidnapping, and this is but one atrocity among many of which the story-teller has been guilty. Murder follows murder, the most abominable cruelties are related as if they were amusing, and in describing cannibalism in Fiji, Bruce revels in the most disgusting details. No feeling of compunction visits the wretched man in relating his enormities, and he asserts at the close of his narrative that he has never been really bad. The volume is well printed, and rather prettily illustrated; but it has no further merit, and from a literary point of view is wholly worthless.
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