Messengers. By Margaret Hope. (Methuen and Co. Gs.) —This is
an extremely painful and poignant story of the utter devastation which a term of imprisonment causes in the life of a woman of education. The ruin of such a woman's later career is unfortunately inevitable, but it must be owned that
the Messenger family, especially James Messenger, Margaret's husband, make the situation as unpleasant as possible. The portrait of the poor woman's daughter is well drawn, and Margaret Messenger herself is a very pathetic figure. She does not, however, appear to have had a sufficient reason for the theft of the ring. An almost insane love for the glitter of jewellery, had it been her only motive, would surely have been pleaded at her trial as constituting a form of mania. In spite of the good and careful work in the book, the reader's relief will be considerable when Margaret, having injured her foot, dies of exposure on a Welsh hillside. In short, this is a novel of unrelieved gloom, and can serve no useful purpose except that of acting as an awful warning to ladies who are too fond of jewellery.
Previous page
