1 SEPTEMBER 1883, Page 26

Tyrants of To-day ; or, the Secret Society. By C.

L. Johnstone. (Tinsley Brothers.)—This novel (?) belongs to a class which is numerously represented just now,—that of the works of fiction concerning which one wonders profoundly how anybody can ever have had the idea of writing them, or imagined that they could find readers. It is childish in style, and the matter is a compound of guide-book, descriptive of countries and cities, with the wildest and silliest fabrications of the scare-makers to whom the International and Nihilism furnish congenial material.