The Molly Maguires : the Origin, Growth, and Character of
the Organisation. By F. P. Dewees. (Lippincott and Co., Philadelphia and London.)—Opening this book in the middle, and reading a smartly- written account of the personal characteristics of several villains of the deepest dye, we thought we had come upon a novel of " Whiteboy " or Fenian life. The book is, in fact, a narrative of a more serious cast, being an account of a revolutionary organisation, existing both in Ireland and America, of a very murderous and bloodthirsty kind. We are happy to think, with our author, that it is now extinct, for a brother- hood of this terrible description, conducting its operations so secretly and skilfully that ordinarily well-informed journalists, to say nothing of detectives, failed to hear all about it, must be far more dangerous to society than ordinary Fenianism. The "Molly Maguire," indeed, reminds us of the famous " Mary Anne "; we wish Mr. Dewees had not given us reasons for accepting it as a more substantial foe. The map of the main American seat of this widespread conspiracy, viz., the anthracite coalfields in the Schuylkill counties,4s not of much use, the names of the localities being mostly illegible without a powerful " magnifier."
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