12 AUGUST 1893, Page 25

A Chronicle of Small - Beer. By John Reid. (Isbister and Co.)

—Mr. Reid tells in a series of effective sketches the story of boy- hood, of its sorrows, its joys, its sentiments, its hates, and its loves. We forget, and are happy to forget, so much of our past, that we do not remember till thus reminded how much there is of these things in early life. A boy's existence seems to his elders to lie wholly outside of it. As a matter of fact, there is, at least in many cases, much " inwardness " in it. This it is that gives the force to this Chronicle. Some one has said that boys are" bad little men." Putting the disparaging epithet aside, they are cer- tainly "little men." It is a " little man " that is so vividly, some- times so pathetically, pourtrayed in Mr. Reid's pages.