A Sailor Tramp. By Bart Kennedy. (Grant Richards. Cs.) — There
is a great deal of force, if slightly brutal force, in Mr. Bart Kennedy's series of literary vignettes, called after their hero, A Sailor Tramp. The tramp, who is an English sailor trying to pick up a livelihood in America, excites the sympathies of the reader in spite of the looseness of the moral standard which makes him feel that robbery with violence is more manly than begging. The rough, hard life. the coarse pleasure of drink, the casual uncertainties of a tramp's life, are drawn by Mr. Kennedy with hard, nervous strokes, and the book reminds the reader of a realistic study in charcoal. The tyranny of the American policeman, although the tramp meets with one notable exceptioe. and of American urban life, has made a deep impression on Mr. Kennedy ; and he strongly resents the expulsion of his hero with other tramps from Galveston, 'Vexes. The picture of the desert into which the men are turned is certainly not encouraging, and the reader is compelled perforce to sympathise with the men who have to submit to such a piece of ill-lack. But the sailor is an idealist, and the thoughts that throng and crowd his mind set him apart from his circumstances and release him from their tyranny. To sum up, the book is a very clever piece of writing. It is not a good novel, for it can hardly be called a novel in the old-fashioned sense at all ; but we may congratulate Mr. Kennedy on having produced a work which, like the daffodils in " Elizabeth's " garden, is sehr modern. Why, however, does he put his own portrait as a frontispiece ? There would be some sense in a portrait of the " sailor tramp." But the man who works the marionettes should remain hidden behind the scenes.
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