The Strand Magazine. — If imitation is the sincerest flattery the Strand
Magazine may plume itself on receiving the most un- equivocal marks of approval from a great many quarters. It was the first of the new type of "popular" magazine which has gradually taught the "popular" reader that a magazine may be as easy reading as a penny newspaper. Indeed, the class of which the Strand is the oldest member make no demand on their readers for thoughtfulness or learning ; they are merely designed- to amuse the idlest of idle hours ; and very well they succeed. The August number of the Strand, for instance, besides the usual short stories, gives a part of a story by Mr. W. W. Jacobs, of which the " briny " flavour is as pungent and entertaining as anything he has written. Miss Nesbit in the series of stories of "The Seven Dragons" draws a portrait of the pleasantest dragon we have ever met. He is far more honest and ingenuous than the tiresome people who succeed in taming him. Photographically, it is seldom that we see such curious pictures as those of the bird's-eye views of the Alps taken from Captain Spelterini's balloon. They show a third view of a mountain,—ignored by the ingenious American who said that of the two views obtainable, he preferred that of the top from the bottom to that of the bottom from the top. The "Peep into Punch" gives the reader a pleasant reminiscence of jokes laughed at in the early "eighties." Altogether, the traveller who provides himself with the Strand for reading in the train can always be sure that somewhere in its pages he will find a story, article, or picture to beguile the tedium of his journey. .
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