14 JANUARY 1899, Page 24

By Far Euphrates. By D. Alcock. (Hodder and Stoughton.) —The

strongest sympathy for the Armenian sufferers from Turkish cruelty—a sympathy which the Spectator has not failed to express at the proper time and place—will not make us think that the subject of this tale is well chosen. "Every instance of faith and heroism given in these pages is not only true in itself, but typical of a hundred others." We can quite believe it. Let such things be proclaimed again and again, but let it be done in the proper way, not by means of fiction, a method which, at the most, can but move an ineffective sentiment. The more power there is in the book—and power there certainly is—the greater the risk of real harm being done to the caw.