The Boys' Ch.pn Annual and The Girls' Own A.nnw4l. (Religious
Tract Society.)—These two volumes are as fell of good reading and spirited illustration as usual, and are, as usual, distinguished by just the right sort of differences. The Girls' Annual, we see, appeals to its public by a list of contribut_rs, showing well-known names in literature and art, a commendation which the fellow periodical dispenses with. Are we to suppose that one public is more critical than the other, or that it is more likely to know what these names mean ? A volume which can show, to men- tion writers only, such names as Dr. George Macdonald, Mrs. Molesworth, Mrs. Linmeus Banks, Miss Sarah Doudney, Miss Isahella Fyvie Mayo, Mrs. Sarah Tytler, and Archdeacon Wil-
son, with more than sixty others, all more or less of repute, has a right to make a boast of them. The contents of the two periodicals quite defy description or analysis. We may say that the papers on cricket and sport in the Boys' Annual seem par- ticularly good. There is an amusing sketch of that very curious institution, a Yorkshire fishing-match. Among the serials are a " Tale of Adventure and Peril in Borneo," by Ashmore Russan and Frederick Boyle, and "The Champion of the Kremlin," by David Ker. The authors, it will be seen, have subjects with which they are at home. Among the fiction in the Girls' Annual are " Sack- cloth and Ashes," by Ruth Lamb ; " The Studio Mariano," by Eglanton Thorne; and "A Battle with Destiny," by John Saunders.
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