24 MAY 1902, Page 23

Mary Manning. By Edith Eustis. (Harper and Brothers. 6s.)—Politics and

love are the chief ingredients in this dish of fiction. In John Manning the first is the dominant element, over- powering not love only, but conscience also ; in George Hood we have a nobler type, a man who sacrifices his prospects to his con- victions. It is here, we must own, that we find the chief interest of Mary Manning, though there is some fine study of character. For the tale we cannot say much. Surely there is a certain crudity in the mechanism of the story. One man is conveniently disposed of by typhoid ; another made happy by a carriage accident. Such means are legitimate only when they come into the natural development of events.