OUTDOORS IN OLD KENTUCKY.
Blue-Grass and Rhododendron: Outdoors in Old Kentucky. By John Fox, jun. (A. Constable and Co. 6s.)—The writer of this delightful book takes us to the pleasant hill-country in the States from which "Charles Egbert Cradock " has obtained some of her best heroes and heroines, the home of that non-slave- holding mountaineer whose "long, lean, powerful arm helped to hold Kentucky for the Union by giving preponderance to the Union sympathisers in the Blue-Grass, kept the East Tennesseans loyal to a man, made West Virginia, as the phrase goes, secede from secession,' and drew out a horde of 100,000 volunteers when Lincoln called for troops." Railways and other "visible mani- festations" of civilisation have had their effect upon the Kentucky mountaineer as upon everybody else,—not always for the better. But he seems to be substantially what he was at the time of the Civil War. His sprightly historian represents him here as he is now, hunting, fishing, shooting, making love, and hanging criminals. "The Avenging of Halton Hall," "The Red Fox of the Mountains," and "Man Hunting in the Pound" tell three very lively stories of this last form of industry. The" Red Fox" is surely the most extraordinary criminal that was ever found, even in the States, as he was at once a preacher, a herb-doctor, a revenue officer, a detective, a crank, and an assassin. The quieter chapters, such as "After Brer Rabbit," in which hunting and mating go hand-in-hand, will probably be found the most enjoy- able, and, from the standpoint of history, the most informing. But there is not a dull page in the book.
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