City Girl : a Realistic Story. By John Law. (Vizstelly
and Co.)—We are like many readers, we fancy, in feeling a shudder of apprehension when we see a story described by its author as "realistic." It is pretty sure to be a picture of squalid and vicious life, and not at all sure to be tree in any extended sense. It may be tree, to take the central incident of A City Girl, that a young woman has been seduced by some man who professes to bring, and really has some vague intention of bringing, culture into East•End life. But we feel sure that the incident is not typically true, that typically it is a gross falsehood. Accordingly, we think that Mr. Law has made a serious mistake in introducing it. That he means well we do not doubt; perhaps he thinks that some warning is needed to young men of mistaken principles who may be taken by a vague feeling of benevolence into peculiar situations. Some of the characters are touched with vigour ; but of the whole book we cannot speak with any approval.
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