CURRENT LITERATURE.
Dictionary of Australasian Biography. By Philip Mennell. (Hutchinson and Co.)—To compress accounts of two thousand lives into a volume of 542 pages can have been no easy task for Mr. Mennen ; bnt was it necessary to make the selection so wide ? Where was the need of embracing such careers as the Admirals on the Australian and New Zealand stations ? And, simply on the ground that Mrs. Humphrey Ward was born in Tasmania, it seems superfluous to fill nearly a couple of pages respecting her literary work. There are other and better sources from which all the information respecting such persons can be readily obtained. With these exceptions, we think the book fills a real niche. It is quite a trustworthy Australasian "Men of the Time." Omissions which we noted in Messrs. Hutchinson's "Cyclopedia" of Australasia are here well filled up. It was a happy idea, we think, to include in the Dictionary accounts of some of the distinguished Maori chiefs, notably those who, like Major Keepa, commonly known as Major Kemp, fought so nobly on the side of the Colonists. General Keeps, as the natives call him, received a sword of honour from the Queen for personal valour in the field. In running over the pages, one comes across such an interesting fact as that relating to Major Heaphy, who was the only colonist decorated with the Victoria Cross for gallant and humane conduct in connection with the Maori wars. In one of the many surprises made by the Maoris, a soldier had an artery shot through, and fell near the edge of a creek ; he was fast bleeding to death when Heaphy, though exposed to the skilfully concealed fire of the enemy, rushed to the assistance of his fallen comrade ; he was wounded in three places, yet succeeded in carrying off his man to a place of safety. Then there is the humorous story of Mr. Forsaith's " Clean Shirt Ministry," which lasted but two days only. Mr. Forsaith was the first Premier of New Zealand. In making his Ministerial statement, he said that he was engaged in unpacking goods from England at his shop in Queen's Street, Auckland, when the Acting-Governor, Colonel Wynyard, having asked him to form a Ministry, he put on a clean shirt and complied with the request. The leader of the Opposition chaffingly said that the Premier's statement contained little more than the " clean shirt " incident. The new Ministry were ousted in two days ; and its leader, in retiring from his little brief authority, retorted upon his critic by saying that he had, at all events, come and gone in clean garments ; and he could only wish that his successor in the Premiership might do likewise. History repeats itself even in so young a Colony as New Zea- land, for, as Lord Onslow pointed out the other day, the present Acting-Premier of the country is a working miner. The Minister of Lands is a head shepherd, while the invalided Premier himself was not long ago an itinerant vendor of useful articles.
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