The Martyred Fool. By David Christie Murray. (Smith, Elder, and
Co.)—Here Mr. Christie Murray essays, and not without a certain measure of success, a study in Australia and Anarchism. The hero and "fool" of the story is Evan Rhys, a young Welsh- man, living in Australia, whose father is executed for the murder of an irritating and irritable neighbour named Penthearn, and who in consequence takes up with the opinions of Boris Petrovna, a Russian Nihilist of the most advanced type, whom he stumbles upon in Australia. In the company of Petrovna, he finds a gay though out at-elbows Frenchman, the Comte Montmiellard. Montmiellard is more of a Bohemian than of a revolutionary, and when he becomes the Due de Marais Castel, ceases to trouble himself with the regeneration of the world. He nevertheless con- tinues an active friend of Evan, whom he takes to Paris and educates. Evan is by birth, however, an irreconcilable, takes to writing savage articles in a Communistic paper, is imprisoned, gets completely under the influence of Petrovna, becomes in- volved in a murderous conspiracy, and gets out of it only by killing his fellow-conspirators and himself by means of a bomb. The story could scarcely have a worse ending, but it is well told. Several of the characters—the Gallioesque Due de Marais Castel, the kindly but rough old Scotchman Quhar, his daughter Effie, poor, misled, martyred Evan himself, and, above all, the indomit- able fanatic Petrovna—are in all respects powerfully drawn.
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