The Black Man's Ghost. By John C. Hutcheson. (Ward, Lock,
and Co.)—Captain Snaggs, a good sailor, but a brute liable to become dangerously savage when he is excited by drink, shoots Sam Ledfoot, the black cook. If there ever was a dead Negro, there would seem to be one when the Captain fires his revolver at a short range, and, "uttering a wild, despairing cry, poor Sam dropped into the sea alongside, his body splashing the water right on board into my face as it fell," to quote the description of the " boy " who tells the story. After this we get the usual incidents of an unlucky voyage, but told with the spirit that Mr. Hutcheson , knows so well how to put into his sea-stories,—a fire in the hold, a storm, the grounding of the ship, the discovery of treasures ; while the " ghost " plays his part, to the no small amazement and terror of his old shipmates. There is an excellent chapter entitled "Rival Apparitions," with the truly comic idea of a terrified ghost; and there is a very conclusive catastrophe which works poetical justice to good and bad in the most satisfactory way.
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