2 NOVEMBER 1912, Page 13

The Empire Annual for Girls ; The Empire Annual for

Boys. (Same publishing office. 3s. 6d. each.)—These smaller, but still substantial, volumes seem to have thoroughly established them- selves. Each is, for the price, a bountiful and well-illustrated store of fiction and short articles. They are not too strictly tied down to an Imperial theme, but we notice in the girls' volume scenes laid in Canada and South .Africa, accounts of Royal tours, and a touching Indian tale by Mr. Austin Dobson's daughter engaged in mission work there. The boys' volume has in it the names of long-adored writers such as Mr. David lier and the late Gordon Stables, a matter-of-fact account of Ruskin's Indian hero, Sir Herbert Edwardes, and a too brief account of "The Freeing of the Slaves."