After School. By Robert Overton. (Jerrold and Sons.)—This is a
book full of really good fun. The stories are in a way detached, while they are connected by a thread of unity. The scene is the same, Birchingham Hall ; the same persons reappear again and again. The name is weak—Birchingliam Hall. As it turns out, the Doctor, who is free with his birch, is a very reason- able person. Everything else, almost without exception, is good. The fun verges, it may be said, on the farcical, but is unmistakably good. " Dorkinson's Experience on a Race-course," " Eaglebeak's Baby," "Rule 31," i.e., the adventures of some boys who find themselves in a fight between poachers and gamekeepers, are excellent specimens of the author's way of writing. We are very much mistaken if boys do not like these tales very much ; and they will get no harm from them. On the contrary, the moral will be commended by the unaffected, unsentimental way in which it is introduced.
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