Up Side Streets. By W. Pett Ridge. (Hodder and Stoughton.
5s.)--Mr. Pett Ridge will not think it a disparagement when we say that these very amusing sketches remind as of Mr. Anstey's " Voces Popnli." There is no imitation; the form and method are different; but the humour is of the same class. The first and third sketches illustrate in one way or another the popular sympathy with law-breakers,—only it must be law-breaking of a certain kind. Then in "On Furlough" there is a fine romance in which a "general" at Shepherd's Bush describes to an admiring audience the splendours of her service with a family "as old as the Battle of Waterloo,"—" In ten-sixty-six," interpolates the well- read aunt. "Repairing a Breach" gives us the happy ending of a "breach of promise of marriage" case ; and "A Sense of Duty" the unhappiness that came to a ticket-collector from exacting the difference of fare from the lady of his love and her mamma. All are good to read; now and then wo get a touch of pathos.
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