Autobiography of an English Detective. By Waters. (J. Maxwell) —Another
of an apparently endless series. Stories of crime, and particularly of crime punished, have always an interest, the latter rousing that hunting instinct which is latent, more or less, in every human being. Waters tells suoh stories fairly well, avoids all improprieties, and makes the meanness of crime very clearly apparent. His ruffians and swindlers are never heroes. If he would produce his tales at a little less rapid a rate he would make them a little more probable, and avoid some at least of the legal blunders apparent in this volume, but we do not know that accuracy would make them at all more popular. This particular set is by no means so good as one or two others, but, taken altogether, "Waters" productions are a welcome improvement upon the "Newgate Calendar." He should dip into Feuerbach. That mine of extraordinary cases would reinvigorate his inventiveness.
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