5 DECEMBER 1885, Page 23

The Silver Trumpet. By L. T. Meade. (Hodder and Stoughton.)

—This is a picture, drawn with the touches, minute as well as vigorous, which the author knows how to give, of life among the poor. A certain tin box which a sailor has left in the charge of a poor widow, and which is stolen from her by a rascally fellow-lodger, and a fifty-pound-note which is found stitched up in the tucks of a petticoat, are the fons et orige maii to the persons- concerned in this little dramacf life. Among many effective scenes may be mentioned that in which "Johnnie," imprisoned in the thieves' court, holds out against the temptation preeented to him, not onlytby fear, but also by his love for his father, of joining the evil company. By-the-way,

is there not something hazy in Miss Meade's notions of lost property ? If I find a bank-note in something which I buy at a pawnbroker's, have I any right to appropriate it ?