When a Woman Woos. By Charles Marriott. (Eveleigh Nash. Os.)—Mr.
Charles Marriott has written a novel which would be more edifying did he not take a standpoint in regard to matrimony which we have never countenanced in these columns. From his point of view, the question of marriage or no marriage is one which only affects the man and woman concerned in each particular alliance. He appears to be quite oblivious of the fact that it is a matter for the community at large, and that all sins against the marriage-law are sins against the social order. The interesting part of his new book, however, is not the question whether the heroine does or does not marry the hero, but the study of the heroine's mother, Mrs. Tregarthan. With almost morbid. fidelity Mr. Marriott pictures for his readers the terrible consequences to a middle-class household of oven a slight tendency to drink on the part of the mother of the family. The scene at the end is powerful, if horrible. Indeed, the whole description of the life which may go on in out-of-the-way places under the calm surface of middle-class existence is horrifying in its realism.
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