Stages in the Journey. By Harry Lauder. (A. D. Innes
and Co.)—There is a good deal of cleverness and cynicism, and rather too much of London slang and very shady London journalism, in this story, the author of which is probably a very young man. Some, no doubt, of the characters that figure in the book, such as the male and female members of the Failures Club, and the out-at-elbows artists who make their appearance in the early chapters, are perhaps drawn from life. But there is, to say the least, an air of caricature about a good number of them, such as
Musilage, the unscrupulous newspaper-man, and Dainty Dolly Dot, the dancer; and there is also far too much drinking and Bohemianism generally. Undoubtedly a good deal of what is popularly known as "power" is shown in the portraiture of several of the characters, such as Oliver Baxter, the " parson," and Bower, the "young man about town ; " and, above all, in the tragedy of Freak, the "young newspaper-man from the country," who, engaged to one girl who loves him, comes to grief through falling in love with another girl who is unable to treat him as he thinks he deserves. But, on the whole, the book has a strained and artificial look. The author ought to have waited a little before rushing into print.
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