"About My Father's Business." By Thomas Archer. (Henry S. King
and Co.)—A very sensible preface, containing an emphatic declaration against the prevalent system of trafficking in votes for charitable institutions, introduces us to a book full of varied interest. Of some of the institutions which Mr. Archer describes little report has gone forth to the world, but the story of them is not the less worth reading. Such, for instance, is the "Providence," which was founded many years ago for the children of the French Huguenots, and which gave place, when its situation had ceased to be fitting for the purpose, to the French Hospital. Of others, such as the Sailors' Home, one has often heard before, but is not sorry to be told again by so well- informed and sympathising an observer as Mr. Arc her. It is most satis- factory to learn that since sailor's homes have come in fashion, " there are but few destitute seamen," and for the few that there are there is, it seems, an asylum always open in Wells Street, London Docks, for which no letter of introduction is needed. Among other essays, we may mention, under the title of "The Kingdom," the account of the Nursery in Stepney, more, perhaps, because any good work that is done for children appeals both to our sympathies and our hopes, than because it excels the rest of the volume in interest and value. The whole is worth reading, and we commend it with especial earnestness to the public.
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