Roundabout to Moscow. By John Bell Bonton. (D. Appleton, New
York.)—Mr. Bouton recommends his readers to drop "any heavy pack of fine old English prejudices" that they may be carrying about with them. Change " English " to "anti-English," and the advice is admirably suited to himself. He is an Anglophobe of the first water, and an equally advanced Russophil. Becance he spends a few weeks in Russia, with plenty of money in his pocket, and finds it very pleasant, he feels himself entitled to say that everything is well. A little historical study would do him a world of good. Or, if that is too arduous, let him read what an American magazine, the Century, has just been publishing about Russian prisons. And when he comes to talk of an "offensive interference of England" in American affairs, it might be well to remember that an English Envoy has never published a plan for the invasion of the States (as Mr. Clay published a plan for the invasion of England), nor has the English House of Commons expressed sympathy with notorious enemies of America, after the fashion of the House of Representatives in their dealings with factions hostile to this country. This is a decided drawback from what is for the most part a pleasant and entertaining book. Mr. Bouton went from Paris to Monte Carlo (of which he gives an excellent description), from Monte Carlo to Rome, where he had an amusing rencentre—we should say, three rencontres—with the King, and thence to Naples, Pompeii, Am Switzerland next receives him (and here he shows that he can appreciate the individual Englishman), from Switzerland he goes by way of Berlin to St. Petersburg, and from that city to Moscow, to which he devotes six chapters. It is really surprising to find that an American citizen should find nothing to reprehend in the writings of one of the most determined enemies of freedom that ever lived, Katkoff of the Moscow Gazette.
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