Gripped. By Silas K. Hocking. (F. Warne and Co. 3s.
6d.)— Mr. Hocking would have done well in refreshing his recollections of the " Crito" before he made his hero commit the crime of breaking prison. Socrates held that a good citizen ought to obey the laws under any circumstances. There would have been the additional advantage of retrenching the Klondyke experiences, which are certainly the weakest part of the book. On the whole, the story is a good bit of work of its kind, the old-fashioned "poetical justice" melodrama, a not unpleasant alternative to the ordinary fare with which we are now provided. Whether Gripped was published in a serial form we know not, but its construction suggests it, pass the shade of Sir Walter Besant. .We have, for instance, John Lincoln with "three minutes to live" on p. 291, and are not allowed to know anything more about him till we reach p. 363. He felt, we read, that he had "never been in a more humiliating position." "Humiliating" is not exactly the word which would have occurred to most men.
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