Ten Years in a Portsmouth Slum. By Robert R. Doffing.
(Swan Sonnenschein and Co.)—This book stands outside criticism. When we have said that there is nothing in the way of telling that mars or hinders the profound impression that must be made on the mind by what is told, our duty as critics is done. Mr. Dolling took up, some eleven years ago, the charge of a district in Portsmouth. The work was one of the "missions" which various colleges and schools are now supporting. In this case it is Winchester that is the patron. Mr. Dolling tells the story of what he found when he came, what he set himself to do, what helpers he met with or brought, and what he has been able to effect. There is no narrowness in his view. He bestows the heartiest praise on agencies that have helped him, however different from his own the lines on which they have worked. We feel bound to make special mention of what he says about Miss Weston. And he is equally vigorous in the censure which he bestows. He has great complaints to make of various authorities, spiritual and temporal. His condemnation of the way in which the funds subscribed for the victims of great national disasters are disbursed is most emphatic. In the case of the Victoria' he says, "I believe that if it had not been for Miss Weston many would have died of starvation." This is deliberately written, and it agrees only too well with what most people concluded from the correspondence that went on in the newspapers at the time. Mr. Doling publishes all the letters that passed in the matter of his resignation. We must own that this, the concluding portion of the book, rather jars upon us. Would it not have been possible for him to make the concessions that would have ensured peace ? After all, they could not have been things to be held de fide.
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