Barrack and Battlefield. By Walter Wood. (Hurst and Blackett.)—These fourteen
sketches and stories are vigorously done. Their chief defect is that the point is not always as clear as the average reader would like to have it. The said reader, as Mr. Wood would do well to remember, does not care to take much trouble when he reads a book for entertainment. Mr. Wood takes too much for granted. There is a decidedly picturesque story, for instance, entitled " The Guns of the Ninety-fourth." But how will the reader understand the artillery manoeuvre on which it turns ? When the motive of the story is fairly in- telligible the result is good. "In the Toils of a Deserter" is an instance. But even here Part III. does not make the matter clearer.—With this may be mentioned a little volume of sketches of Irish life, Ring of Rushes, by Shan F. Bullock (Ward, Lock, and Co.)
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