23 OCTOBER 1897, Page 25

Skeleton Reef. By Hugh St. Leger. (S. W. Partridge and

Co.) —The brave boy who fights the bully of the school on behalf of a victim, thrashes him, and is unjustly punished for his chivalry has hard lines ; but when, having gone to sea, he meets the said bully in command of a pirate-slaver, he has the right to complain of fortune. One thing, however, he cannot complain of, and that is a lack of incident in his life. His adventures are of the most stirring kind ; again and again he is on the very brink of Styx. winds up with being hanged, and yet is not a penny the worse.