28 MARCH 1896, Page 25

AU Men are Liars. By Joseph Hocking. (Ward, Lock, Bowden,

and Co.)—The characters with which Mr. Hooking constitutes his drama are of the most conventional kind. The cynic, the selfish aristocrat, the woman of the world, the devotee of pleasure, are drawn on lines which have been made familiar by any number of didactic tales. The real merit of the book lies in the studies, made, it is quite clear, at first hand, of life in the "dismal streets" of a London suburb, and of that strange "yeast" of agitation, social and political, which finds an outlet in the sermons and orations of a London park.