144
[August 18, 1897.
sorrows of life. All of which is very true, but we can hardly think it the business of fiction to give an introspective study of madness. Mrs. Keith's love for her slowly dying child gradu- finally leads to a great catastrophe. The ally undermines her moral responsibility and annals of criminal jurisprudence furnish accounts of extraordinary crimes.com. mitted by mothers whose maternal affection has run to the excess of madness, but these would hardly form pleasant themes for a novel, neither does Mrs. Keith's crime, though the story is artistically told, and relieved with
Christine of the Hills. By MAX PEMBERTON. bright and lively touches here and there.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
justice, that the Government have hitherto not spent the money fast enough; that, in short, sufficient progress is not made with the works. Thus, Mr. ROBERTSON showed, for example, that they had provided £500,000 to be spent at Keyham by the 31st March, 1897, while the actual expenditure has not exceeded £88,204. At Gibraltar, too, the money voted had not been expended. Mr. AusTEN CHAMBERLAIN admitted that the progress actually made with the works was not so grent as, in a sanguine frame of mind,
he believed they were justified in expecting the Admiralty had anticipated last year, but
a greater speed in the current financial year. London: George Bell and Sons. Hong- It will be interesting to note the progress
kong Kelly and Walsh. made in the reclamation for the Dockyard Mr. PEMBERTON's heroine is a Dalmatian girl, here, and whether the Naval Authorities whose story is told to the author by an old will be able to show the local Government sinner of Sebenico who chanced to have a yacht the way in this department of work. If to let and a week to idle through." The old
sinner himself, Andrea, plays a conspicuous. they do not progress faster than the Praya part in the story and is a well drawn character. Reclamation has proceeded it will be many Christine was left an orphan, subject to the years before the large area to be won from abuse of a brutal half-brother, and with no the foreshore will be above water. Fortu- friend but Andrea, and he loses sight of nately for the Admiralty a good deal of the her for four years, which pass unhappily area lies in shallow water, but a vast quan- for the child. She develops a talent for tity of earth will be required for filling, and singing and the violin and ultimately achieves a the method now adopted of bringing it from professional triumph, which coincides in point of time with a crisis in her domestic life. During Yaumati in boats is necessarily very slow, the intervening years she has had remark If Morrison Hill were nearer it would payable experiences of adventure and of love, to purchase and cut it down for the purpose, neglect, and ill-treatment. The story is well using trucks on a light tramway instead of told and the interest is never allowed to flag. baskets on coulies' shoulders. In any case, we trust that no critic of the Government will a twelve month hence need to get up in Parliament to complain that only a small percentage of the money voted for the Royal Naval Yard at Hongkong had been spent.
There secins
the reins of power in the neighbouring provinces should be held in so feeble a grasp as has been the case for many years in Canton. Since CHANG CHI-TUNG left to administer the Government of the Hukwang nt Wuchang no progress of any kind has been made ju the Two Kwang, and every attempt to promote new enterprises has failed either through the apathy of the Viceroy or the corruption of the officials. The outlook is certainly about as bad as could be wished, and the worst of it is material improvement being brought in the that there is very little hope of any ordinary course. If His Excellency TAN is, on the report of his subordinate, removed from the Governor-Generalship, it is to be feared he will only be succeeded by another corrupt mandarin: King Log will be replaced by King Stork. to be no salvation for China through her own governing class, and if ever the country is to be opened up and its great natural resources properly utilised this must be effected by foreign influence if not by direct foreign interference. Meantime it would be an excellent thing for the British Government to afford the Cantonese an object lesson in the direction of how to administer the rural districts by acquiring the strip of land at the rear of the Kowloon peninsula extending to the back of Mirs and Castle Peak Bays. This rectification of the frontiers of the Colony is urgently required, and should be pressed for now while the province is being so shamefully misgoverned. The people living in this small strip of territory would then | be rescued from disorder and find security and freedom from official persecution. The country is not rich, but as the peasants would find their produce free from the taxation at present imposed on most of the provisions sent to the Hongkong markets a great stimulus would be given to cattle raising and the cultivation of vegetables and fruit. Sites for various industries would also be provided, and the first section of the proposed line. from Kowloon to Canton could be constructed, just to show the way and encourage the Chinese Govern- ment to complete the work.
THE NAVAL YARD EXTENSION.
The debate on the Naval Works Bill in the House of Commons on the 14th ultimo had some local interest for this Colony, Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN, Civil Lord of the Admiralty, in an able speech, in moving the second reading of the Bill, gave the House some information as to the new works that are to be undertaken during the current financial year. The most im- of portant, of course, is the creation a harbour at Dover which will have an enclosed space of 610 acres below low water and afford berths for about twenty battleships besides smaller vessels. At Gibraltar it is intended to close the north end of the harbour by a breakwater, at a cost of £700,000, of which the colony is to contribute four-sevenths. At Colombo a large new dock is to be built, towards the cost of which the. Admiralty will contribute one-half, the said sum not to exceed £159,000 Concerning Hongkong, au in crease had been made in the estimate for the extension of the Naval Yard which will give the Admiralty a dockyard of eight acres aud a deep water basin with a frontage of 1,100 feet instead of the single deep water jetty afforded by the old design. The statement well received, but the critics pointed out, and, as The Times remarks, not without
was
REVIEWS.
The Folly of Pen Harrington. By JULIAN STURGIS. London: Longmans, Green &
Co. 1897.
The Temple of Folly. Chapters from the Book
of Mr. Fairfax, the Franciscan, truthfully, and for the first time, setting forth his entire relations with that curious, evil' brotherhood. Edited by PAUL CRESWICK. London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1897. IN a preliminary note issued by the publisher while the book was in the printer's hands we were informed that Mr. Paul Creswick was
making his, as yet, most important bid for fame in "The Temple of Folly." "The title is an allusion to Medenham Abbey the scene of the THIS, the latest addition to Longmans' famous orgies of George Bubb Dodington, Colonial Library, aims, according to the author's the favourite of George the Second Mr. Cres- statement in the dedication to Miss Rhoda wick has, in fact, essayed a historical romance Broughton, at being a comedy. And a comedy it in which he has brought Dodington in, in the is, bright and sparkling, and with a little tragic picturesque double rôle of perfect gentleman touch in one of the characters that adds to the and infamous rake. Dodington, it will be re- membered, founded an impious order of Francis- interest. Pen Harrington, the heroine, is an
cans who worshipped the devil. The names of unconventional young lady, healthy minded and generous, moving in London society and patro-eleven of the twelve members of this order are nising a girls' club, the members of which handed down to us. The twelfth is unknown. adore her. Pen makes everyone obey her, not Mr. Creswick has made his hero the twelfth and only the members of her club, but also the thus fiction steps in where history fears to tread.” notable personages composing her social clique. But we do not find very much about the Fran- Amongst the characters introduced are a polished ciscans in the book. There is an account in the villain and a sound hearted explorer from Africa fifteenth chapter of the hero's initiation, but who has made a name for himself. After the the mysteries of the Order have not a great manner of comedies the heroine in the long deal to do with the plot, which is concerned run bestows her hand and heart in the right chiefly with love and adventure. Anthony Fair- place. The rather slender plot is skilfully fax, the hero, who tells the tale, was to have treated, with plenty of lively dialogue and a been trained in his father's bank at Totnes, but succession of amusing and exciting situations. instead he ran away to sea. Subsequently he It is a book to be real at one sitting, and few is thrown into contact with George Bubb who commence it will lay it down until they Dodington, aftewards Lord Melcombe, by whom have finished it. Our copy for review reaches he is induced to join the Order of Franciscans, ns through Messrs. Kelly and Walsh, Limited. though he does not appear to have joined to any
great extent in their orgies and villanies, but on. the contrary to have lived the sort of life to be expected of a healthy minded, high spirited young fellow. If the historical element in the book is somewhat thin and disappointing the romance itself is distinctly interesting.
Mrs. Keith's Crime. A Record. By Mrs. W. K. CLIFFORD. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
1897.
The
1
A NOVEL which reaches a sixth edition must have recommendations. "Mrs. Keith's Crime is a strongly written story, but exceptionally morbid. The crime which forms its motif as clearly the result of an unhinged is. mind as if it had resulted from religious mania or any other form of madness. In her preface, referring to criticisms of her work that have appeared, the authoress says: chief objections to Mrs. Keith were that it was written in the present tense, and that as a whole it was much too painful." The former objec- tion she meets by saying that a workmau uses those tools which will best accomplish the design he has in hand, and that the present tense was the best tool for telling this story; while as for the story being painful, human life is often an agony borne in silence, and it is the business of fiction to make us familiar with the joys and
A
Being Notes and Padre in Partibus.
Impressions of a brief Holiday Tour through Java, the Eastern Archipelago, and Siam. By the Rev. GEORGETM M. REITH, M.A. Reprinted from the Singa- pore Free Press. Singapore, Hongkong, Shanghai, and Yokohama: Kelly and Walsh, Limited, 1897. THOSE who made acquaintance with Mr. Reith's descriptions of his holiday ramblings when they appeared in the Singapore Free Press will be pleased to have a portion of them in permanent form and will en- tertain a hope that the remainder may be similarly rescued from the oblivion of a news- paper file. The author records bis impressions