22 NOVEMBER 1890, Page 28

The Strange House. By Catharine Shaw. (J. F. Shaw and

Co.) —This story has a somewhat complicated and not very probable plot. We wonder how many well•authenticated cases there are on record of children having been stolen. Perhaps it would be hard to deprive writers of fiction of one of their stock " properties.', Our objection to this is that children are apt to be terrified by

thinking of a danger which looks, it may be said, more real than it is in fact. There is an excellent moral in Miss Shaw's story ; so far, we can praise it without reserve.