THE LOWER SOUTH IN AMERICAN HISTORY.
The Lower South in American History. By W. Garrott Brown. (Macmillan and Co. 6s.)—We have read this lecture on "The Lower South" with considerable pleasure and interest. The historical value of the subject is great, for the more southern States furnished a striking instance of the ability of a vicious system to turn out men of capacity and mental force. The slavery system could not possibly have survived its actual decease more than a few years. Mr. Brown enables us to
• realise the ascendency of the South in the Confederacy, and the solidarity of sentiment, despite divisions, which made Yancey such a successful orator and the "Ku Klux" secret organisation so effective for the disciplining of an unsettled country. A most entertaining chapter to a banker, for instance, would be that on the resources of the South; no belligerent Power ever played more wildly with paper money, or was more bravely backed up by an enthusiastic and unselfish people. Mr. Brown gives such figures as impress without quite bewildering us. The genesis of the "Ku Klux" is well worth reading, from its moderation and evident impartiality. Indeed, this quality of moderation is pleasingly apparent in Mr. Brown's work, with a not too condensed style and straining after epigrammatic smartness. Occasionally a little boyish enthusiasm shows itself in describing the awaken- lug of Virginia and the story of Hobson. We may, then, consider • these essays to be of a certain historical value ; perhaps the best, for it is the most serious and the . most important, is "Shifting the White Man's Burden." The most far-sighted of ' those Americans who know the negro can see no better plan, nivently, than to deny suffrage to the negro.
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