23 JULY 1870, Page 21

Rural and City Life; or, the Fortunes of the Stubble

Family. By "Old Boomerang." (Sampson Low and Co.)—This story is a strange mixture of the comic, the pious, and the sensational. The more quiet scenes, where the author contents himself with sketching some aspects of colonial manners, are good enough ; there is no lack of humour, and everything has a truthful and characteristic look about it. But the villain, Ben Goldstone, is an atrocious daub. Nor is the story of his doings at all edifying, though it is set off by the contrast of his father's piety.