Life and Times of Anne Royal. By Sarah Harvey Porter,
M.A. (Torch Press, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.)—Were Anne Royal alive now —her time was 1769-1854—she would be an eminent leader of suffragettes. She was militant with speech and pen, a vehement pro-Mason—a curious thing for a woman and recalling a now extinct quarrel—and an equally vehement anti-Evangelical. And she had no liking for Abolition. There is an exposition of her principles which reads very well, and is in some respects much in advance of her time. But she had most objectionable methods of expounding them. In an age when personalities were common she was exceptionally violent. Her biographer is very angry because an obsolete statute was revived and she was tried as a common scold. A ducking-stool, the old punishment of this offence, was brought into Court, and the case was argued, witnesses having been called for the prosecution and the defence. A flno of ten dollars was imposed, and security to the amount of fifty dollars demanded for a year's good behaviour. Miss Porter gives extracts which prove that her heroine was a scold of the shrillest sort. Yet we can believe that she did some good. She was certainly in earnest.
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