Cesar Cascabel. By Jules Verne. (Sampson Low, Marston, and Co.)—This
is one of the stories which M. Jules Verne con- structs at once so simply and so ingeniously, and which he tells with such unfailing spirit. CC:sar Cascabel is a French showman who has been performing with his wife and family for several years in the States, and finding himself with some two thousand dollars saved, is anxious to return to France. On his way east- ward, he is robbed of the strong-box in which he has stored his money, and determines to make his way home by turning west- ward, crossing the Behring Straits, and passing through Siberia. He traverses British Columbia with much disgust, for he hates the English nation, a feeling with which M. Jules Verne seems not altogether unsympathetic,—strange ingratitude to a country which supplies him with so many readers. Arriving at the Alaska frontier, be is turned back by the Russian officials because he has no passport. Happily, the transfer of the country to the United States opportunely occurs, and he is free to go on. Meanwhile, he has taken care of a wounded traveller, who turns out to be a political refugee ; and has also made another addition to the " Famille Cascabel" in the person of an Indian girl. We need not pursue the story of their adventures. It is enough to say that it is eminently readable, and invested with that taking air of probability which the author contrives to give to all his in- ventions. Books of this kind are not of very serious moment ; but it is not without significance at this particular time that M. Jules Verne shows himself at once Anglophobe and Russophil.
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