Pauperising the Rich. By Alfred J. Ferris. (Headley Brothers. 7s.
6d.)—Mr. Ferris quotes the case of an imaginary "Mrs. B.," who finds that one of her pensioners has taken advantage of her bounty to liberate himself from all works, and he proceeds to apply the illustration. "Mrs. B." is the world in general ; the "pensioner" represents the rich, whom the world permits either to do nothing at all, or to do work of the very lightest kind. This is a smart bit of satire, but there is hardly enough in it to form the substance of a solid octavo of more than four hundred pages. Mr. Ferris makes it a text for the preaching of a modified Socialism. Books of this kind without number have been written in the past and will be written in the future. They have not converted, and will not convert, the world ; but they have their use, which is to reiterate the foundation principles of Christianity as enunciated by the Jerusalem Christians,—" Neither said any of them that aught of the things which he possessed was his own."
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