2 AUGUST 1884, Page 26

The Poor of the Period. By Mrs. Houston. (F. V.

White and Co.) —It has rarely been our lot to read anything quite so hopelessly unsatisfactory as these two volumes,—nearly five hundred pages of disjointed twaddle, held together by a strong thread of malevolent discontent with things in general ! We can simply wonder for whose reading stuff of this kind is printed ? And we would warn our readers against the delusive hope held out by the title ; they will gain no fresh insight into the condition of the poor of this or any other period from these pages.