3 JUNE 1865, Page 21

Besom Ben. By Edwin Waugh. (John Heywood, Manchester.)— An account

of a practical joke, or rather of two or three practical jokes, played by Lancashire operatives on each other. The main object of course is to illustrate the Lancashire dialect, in which rather uncouth tongue the story is written; but there is a good deal of humour and delicate discrimination of shades of rustic character in it as well.