The Claw. By Cynthia Stockley. (Hurst and Blackett. 6s.)— This
is a novel of South Africa in the days of the first Matabele War. It is told by the heroine in the first person, and the hero is a little too like the dark and mysterious hero of
a young lady's romance to be quite convincing. It is difficult to believe that a party of Englishwomen in South Africa could ever have been so extraordinarily useless and spiteful as the group described as having come down from Salis- bury to Fort George. Possibly idleness and black servants may sometimes cause degeneration in the qualities which we look for in the colonizing Englishwoman, but it is to be hoped that matters are not generally so bad as they are painted in this book. The story nevertheless gives the atmosphere of South Africa with considerable skill, and is worth reading for that reason.
READABLE NOVELS.—Love and the Agitator. By Ellis Lloyd. (The Century Press.)—A story of which the interest lies in the picturing of Welsh labour troubles. It would have been better without Claude Dubois. --.A. Maid of the Malvern. By T. H. Porter. (Lynwood and Co., 6s.)—This is a very pretty and in- genious story. The "Maid" masquerades as a boy in Ben Jonson's company of child-actors.—Four Millions a Year. By Colin Collins. (Greening and Co. 6s.)—A sufficiently extravagant story, but not without a bearing on serious social questions.
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