The Other World. By Frank Frankfort Moore. (Evoleigh Nash. 6s.)—Mr.
Frankfort Moore has given us a collection of six stories of the other side of life, the inexplicable invasions of our world by something strange and un-mortal. In most of the tales there is no special freshness of invention; but Mr. Moore is a skilful story-teller, and he adopts the right method in ghost- stories,—a great air of detail and matter-of-factness. When the idea is novel this method ensures success, and when it is old we have at least a readable story. "A Providential Escape " and "Magic in the Web of It" are ordinary tales of second-sight, and call for no particular comment. "The Baseless Fabric" is also a hackneyed idea, but the Irish setting which Mr. Moore has given it makes it more pleasing than most. " The Ghost of Barmouth Manor" is an attractive tale of two lovers, who are unacquainted, but forecast their meeting at a particular place in an old house, and are brought together eventually in the very situation of their dreams. In "The Strange Story of Northaven Priory" the author has taken the most terrific of all conceptions, the Black Mass, but he seems to us to show a poverty of fancy in his details, and our hearts beat no faster for his horrors. "Tbe Blood Oranges," on the other hand, has nothing supernatural about it. It is a simple tale of an Italian's revenge upon an Englishman, but the scenery is so skilfully brought to bear upon the tragedy that the result is impressive. But by far the best of the stories is " Black as He is Painted," where a matter-of-fact method is used in telling a really novel tale. It is a story, on the lines of Mr. Grant Allen's "John Creedy," of the civilised negro's relapse into savagery. Somewhere on the West Coast of Africa Dr. Koomadhi falls in love with a white girl, and when she refuses him, sets to work to revenge himself on her husband. He has the sacred monkey- stone, which enables him to turn the man into a sort of ape and set him wandering in the tree-tops. But he loses the stone before his revenge is consummated, and is torn to death by an army of monkeys from the forest. It is a gruesome yarn, and if Mr. Moore has more like it in his brain, those who appreciate this sort of fare will be very ready to welcome them.
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