Howard, the Philanthropist, and his Friends. By John Stoughton, D.D.
(Hodder and Stoughton).—We do not quite see that there was a call for a new book on this subject. Dr. Stoughton might have taken Mr. J. Baldwin Brown's biography, which has the advantage of having been written from something more approaching the con- temporary point of view, and added to it anything of interest which his own researches may have produced. This would have given us the best biography. But what, perhaps, would have been more valuable would have been an essay, setting forth in a lucid and orderly arrangement what Howard's work was at home and abroad, in prison and in general social reform, for he did not by any means confine his energies to prisons. As it is, we do not feel much en- lightened or interested by Dr. Stonghton's volume.
The Sagacity and Morality of Plants. By J. C. Taylor, Ph.D. (Chatto and Windus).--Dr. Taylor collects in this volume and arranges under various titles (which we might call sensational, or even catchpenny, had not the words too great a depreciatory force) such as "Poverty and Bankruptcy," "Robbery and Murder," a number of curious. facts about the development and life of plants, the parasitic habits of some, the use which others make of insects, the means by which they invite profitable and defend themselves against injurious visitors,
and the like. These he puts in an impressive way and makes generally effective. Botany, as he truly says, is no longer an affair of pistils and stamens, satisfied when it has investigated the mechanical structure of a plant. It searches into the habits of living creatures,—creatures, too, which differ from one another in. their modes of life, not less than do the various tribes of the animal world. The author has made out of this subject (which is, indeed,. a very promising one) a truly interesting book.
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