Pity the Poor Blind. By H. H. Bashford. (Constable and
Co. 6s.)—There is distinction in Dr. Bashford's writing and his story; it is the more regrettable that he succumbs to the lure of realism. He draws for us a young East-End clergy-- man who comes to see that he has taken holy orders rather- for his own advancement in a career than from spirituab motives. He realizes eventually that the first duty God- has for him to do lies in making a home for his socially unpresentable mother. Another of the "poor blind " is a. girl, the motherless daughter of a raffish household in. Dorset, a healthy animal without any spiritual or intellectual development. Her awakening begins through the young- clergyman, and becomes acute when she is seduced after some coarse " ragging" of a house-party in her home. She is. scarcely in love with the man who wrongs her, but sees. her duty in marrying him and subordinating her own feelings_ to the welfare of her coming child. There are other excellent. characters—the bishop, the doctor and his sister, the East-End: clergy, and others. Some good comedy circles round the- precocious younger daughter of the sporting baronet, and the- author describes convincingly both East London and the. Dorset coast in their strong contrast.
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