duced into the narrative, and everything connected with them, give evidence, at least, of good faith on the part of the author. The book, in short, shows clearly enough that it was the work of an angry and embittered man, but not of a dishonest one, though it is quite possible, of course, that Dr. Peters should be mistaken in matters of detail. That the early Connecticut settlers were intolerant, arbitrary, and tyrannical in the extreme, is one of the indisputable truths of history; and it is comparatively an unimportant matter whether they went to the length of prohibiting by law a mother from kissing her child on Sunday.

The interest of the work, however, is not confined to the controversy about the Blue-Laws. The geographical descriptions, and the long analyses of the claims of title to the territory brought forward by different colonies, will probably be skipped by most readers; but the picture of manners and customs and modes of life is a very animated one, and gives us a lively idea of the circumstances of colonial society just prior to the Revolution. The doctor has an evident liking for good stories and an aptitude for telling them, and, besides many curious details about "bundling" and other local usages, we find here a goodly number of personal anecdotes, among them the earliest version of General Putnam's adventure with the wolf (here transformed into a bear with two cubs). The following episode in the history of the town of Windham, narrated by the doctor with perfect seriousness, combines with other things to show that he wrote before the fear of captious critics had sharpened the perceptions of historians:

"Strangers in Windham are very much terrified at the hideous noise made on summer evenings by the vast number of frogs in the brooks and ponds. There are about thirty different voices among them, some of which resemble the bellowing of a bull. The owls and whippoorwills complete the rough concert, which may be heard several miles. Persons accustomed to such serenades are not disturbed by them at their proper stations; but one night in July, 1758, the frogs of an artificial pond, three miles square, and about five from Windham, finding the water dried up, left the place in a body, and marched, or rather hopped, toward Winnomantic River. They were under the necessity of taking the road and going through the town, which they entered about midnight. The bull-frogs were the leaders, and the pipers followed without number. They filled the road forty yards wide for four miles in length, and were for several hours in passing through the town unusually clamorous. The inhabitants were equally perplexed and frightened : some expected to find an army of French and Indians; others feared an earthquake and dissolution of Nature. The consternation was universal. Old and young, male and female, fled naked from their beds with worse shriekings than those of the frogs. The event was fatal to several women. The men, after a flight of half a mile, in which they met with many broken shins, finding no enemy in pursuit of them, made a halt, and summoned resolution enough to venture back to their wives and children, when they distinctly heard from the enemy's camp these words: Wight, Hilderkin, Dier, Tete.' This last, they thought, meant treaty, and, plucking up courage, they sent a triumvirate to capitulate with the supposed French and Indians. These the men approached in their shirts, and begged to speak with the general; but it being dark, and no answer given, they were sorely agitated for some time betwixt hope and fear: at length, however, they discovered that the dreaded inimical army was an army of thirsty frogs going to the river for a little water."

libility, if that is not too harsh a name for it, but the piquancy of the book is enhanced throughout by a certain quaint combination of native intellectual shrewdness and keen insight with an almost childlike credulity.

A COMPREHENSIVE and systematic treatise on the application of art to industry would undoubtedly be of great service just now, when the attention of our artisans and manufacturers has been drawn to our deficiencies in this matter by the great competitive displays of the Centennial Exposition; but Mr. George Ward Nichols has failed to fully meet the want in the work which the Messrs. Harpers have issued for him. Mr. Nichols is favorably known as a writer on art, and his book contains material of the highest interest and value; but the material is utterly undigested, it is badly arranged and poorly classified, and the force of the author's arguments is dissipated by reason of their being imbedded in a mass of irrelevant and incongruous matter. A natural inference from the book itself is that the author had care

fully collected data for such a treatise as we have spoken of, that he could not find time to assort and reduce them to shape, and that he finally decided to publish them as they stood, trusting to their intrinsic value to compensate for any defects of composition.

The object of the work, as defined by Mr. Nichols, is "to show the need of art-education in the United States; to relate something of its history in Europe; to explain what is meant by its application to industry, and to propose a method of instruction best adapted to our people and institutions." The thesis mainly insisted upon is that, in order to enable our countrymen to hold their own in the future competitions of commerce, we must follow the example of the leading European nations and provide in a scientific manner and on a liberal scale-1. For the universal instruction of youth in the elements of art (the principles and methods of both the fine and industrial arts being the same up to a certain point); and, 2. For the special technical training of those whose pursuits offer opportunities for the application of wider and more thorough knowledge. The necessity of this appears so obvious to the author that he assumes that sooner or later it will be universally recog nized by our educational authorities, and addresses himself more particularly to what may be called the second branch of his subject, namely, the discovery of the best method of training and instruction. In order to find this he examines in detail all that has been accomplished in this direction by public and private enterprise in the various countries of Europe; and then, selecting those principles and methods which common experience has fixed upon as most essential, he constructs an elaborate and systematic scheme of art-instruction, which, falling in with the mathematical studies of our primary schools, adapts itself to the several ascending grades of the school system, until it diverges into the more advanced curriculum of art academies and institutes of technology. Of course, practical experiment must furnish the only satisfactory test of this scheme, but it seems practicable and adequate, and there can be no doubt that it contains many valuable suggestions for any State, school district, or private teacher, that proposes to make a trial of scientific instruction in art.

The most useful portion of the book are the chapters describing the plans of art-education and of stimulating industrial skill that have been adopted in Great Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Prussia, and

1 Art-Education applied to Industry. By George Ward Nichols. With Illustrations. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Spain. The most interesting portion, perhaps, is the supplementary chapter on the Centennial Exposition, where Mr. Nichols was a member of the corps of judges, and of which he was evidently a close and well-informed student. But most enjoyable of all are the numerous pictures, which illustrate every important department of industrial art, and are engraved and printed in the most exquisite manner.

ONE of the complaints commonly made by believers in spiritualism and other correlated mysteries is that scientific men refuse to give the same sort of attention to its manifestations as they give to all the other phenomena which Nature presents. They say that scientists have made up their minds on a subject which they have not investigated, and profess to believe that thorough and impartial investigation would in every case lead to the acknowledgment of the reality of the spiritualistic phenomena if not to acceptance of the interpretation which spiritualists put upon them. This complaint, though not without some justification, has never been wholly true-individual scientists having over and over again tried to apply the ordinary tests of science; and the works of Dr. W. B. Carpenter show that he, at least, has neither been afraid nor unwilling to study the subject in all its bearings. The methods he has pursued, and the conclusions he has reached in the matter, are plainly enough indicated in certain chapters of his "Mental Physiology," but he has now presented his views in more precise and consecutive form in two lectures which he delivered a few months ago at the London Institution. In these lectures, just issued with copious addenda and pièces justificatives, he discusses historically and scientifically the whole subject of mesmerism, odylism, clairvoyance, thought-reading, tableturning, and spiritualism; and he speaks as one who is thoroughly familiar with all its phases, and whose mind is fully made up. Many of the so-called mesmeric and spiritualistic phenomena he refers to conscious fraud and imposition, others to ignorance and unintentional selfdeception, while for the small residuum of strange facts which have so puzzled and misled honest observers he finds an adequate explanation in sense-deceptions brought about by "the subjection of the mind to a dominant idea." Spiritualism in its modern manifestations he regards as one of those strange epidemic delusions which at various periods have swept over large portions of the world, and he maintains that science can put it down by proving, as it can readily do, that the really authentic data on which the delusion is based are the result of those abnormal conditions of the human mind and body with which physiologists and psychologists are already familiar. "Expectant Attention" plays the same crucial part as in Dr. Hammond's treatise, which we had occasion to notice a year or so ago, and "Fallacies of Memory" dispose of whatever this fails to explain.

Of course the question as to the adequacy of Dr. Carpenter's interpretation is preeminently one with which scientific experts must deal; but we may call attention, as we have already done in our notice of Dr. Hammond's book, to what appears to be the special weakness of his argument. The very structure of science, the entire fabric of human knowledge, rests upon our assumption

1 Mesmerism, Spiritualism, etc., Historically and Scientifically Considered. Being Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution, with Preface and Appendix, by W. B. Carpenter, M. D., LL. D., F. R. S. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 8vo, pp. 158.

of the substantial trustworthiness of the testimony of our senses regarding the external world. The testimony may be misleading, as Berkeley has demonstrated, but it is all we have, and Natural Science at least commits suicide in discrediting it. Now Dr. Carpenter's argument is wholly dependent for its validity upon the proposition that our senses are liable to deceive us, and he summarizes his doctrine in the sentence that "we should rather trust to the evidence of our sense than to that of our senses." He admits that the evidence of the senses under the usual conditions is sufficient for all ordinary matters, but argues that it is not admissible when extraordinary matters are dealt with. But just here begins the real difficulty-What is ordinary and what extraordinary? Each age and each period would return a different answer, for, as some one has well said, "the miracles of one generation are the commonplaces of the

next."

Inconclusive in some respects though the book may be, however, there can be no doubt as to its great interest and suggestiveness. It is written with remarkable animation and vigor, and it abounds in "cases" quite as wonderful as any which the spiritualists have brought forward.

EXPERIENCE has shown that the study of the natural sciences cannot be pursued to advantage by beginners any more than by advanced scholars, save through the medium of practical experiments; and a very important gap in existing means of instruction will be filled by Mayer and Barnard's "Experimental Science Series for Beginners." The initial volume of the series has just been issued, and its design, as explained in the preface, is "to furnish a number of simple and easy experiments in the phenomena of light, that any one can perform with materials that may be found in any dwelling-house, or that may be bought for a small sum in any town or city." Nearly all the experiments are new, all have been thoroughly tested, the whole of them can be performed at a total cost of less than fifteen dollars, and they make familiar to the most childish intelligence the salient facts concerning the sources, action, reflection, refraction, and decomposition of light, the laws of colors, and the teachings of the solar spectrum. The plan of the book differs from that of any of its predecessors in this, that the experiments are not subordinate to and merely illustrative of the text, but, in fact, constitute the essence of the instruction; the method is to give first minute directions for performing the experiment, then to describe its results, and then to point out, as the natural outcome of the performance, the particular fact or law which it illustrates. The experiment is the lesson; the idea of the authors being that "the experimenter who questions Nature himself, who constructs his own apparatus, and who performs his own experiments, learns past forgettinghe knows because he has observed." Though all are simple and easily performed, many of the experiments are exceedingly beautiful, and children would delight in them precisely as in the mysterious shows of the magic lantern. In schools the pupils might take turns in performing them, and the time devoted to the lesson would doubtless be looked forward to with eagerness and back upon with regret. Similar volumes will deal with sound, heat, optics, magnetism, electricity, and mechanics.

1 Experimental Science Series for Beginners. Light: A Series of Simple, Entertaining, and Inexpensive Experiments in the Phenomena of Light, for the Use of Students of Every Age. By Alfred M. Mayer and Charles Barnard. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 16m0, pp. 113.

ROGERS, PEET & Co., 487 Broadway, corner Broome Street, New York, are men of large capital, experience, and extensive manufacturers and retailers of fine clothing for men and boys. Their styles command the immediate attention of educated and refined tastes, while their prices are within the limits of a wise economy.

THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY SUPPLEMENT, No. 5, contains: "The Bible," by Professor W. Robertson Smith: II.-"The New Testament; 'Copernicus in Italy;" "Secret Societies in Russia," by D. Mackenzie Wallace; "The Conditions of Life in Animated Beings," by Emile Blanchard; "Dr. Carpenter on Spiritualism," by Alfred Russell Wallace; "A Study of Lower Life," The Trial of Jesus Christ," by Alexander Taylor Innes; "Vital Force;' "Predominant Delusions;" "Curiosities of the Voice." Price, twenty-five cents, or three dollars per annum. D. Appleton & Co., publishers.

THE London Examiner pronounces Julian Hawthorne's "Garth" "a very powerful story-on the whole, the best novel that Julian Hawthorne has written, and Julian Hawthorne is both a powerful and an original writer." The Examiner concludes its review of "Garth" as follows:

"We have to thank Mr. Hawthorne for having, at a time when any kind of work, the flimsiest and most unfinished, seems to be thought good enough to go to the making up of a novel, added one more to the not too large list of writers who labor to produce a thoughtful and thoroughly artistic work- -one that, while always remaining a novel, and never invading the domains of the philosophical treatise, is worthy of careful study and earnest criticism. Mr. Hawthorne is not without faults, but his merits are many and striking; but it may safely be said that, if he will but take the trouble, he can make the one disappear as surely as he can heighten and cultivate the other."

MR. WILLIAM LONGMAN, the famous English publisher who recently died, was fond of traveling. His first attempt at authorship, indeed, was a privately printed volume, describing a "Six Weeks' Tour in Switzerland; " and some two years ago he contributed "Impressions of Madeira in 1875" to Fraser's Magazine. He was at one time President of the Alpine Club; and his last contribution to literature was the commencement of some remarks on "Modern Mountaineering, and the History of the Alpine Club," which appeared in the Alpine Journal last February. This must, unfortunately, remain a fragment. He also wrote "Suggestions for the Exploration of Iceland."

RHODA BROUGHTON lives the greater part of her time in the beautiful vale of Clwyd, Wales, and has doubtless derived her love of scenery and her power of describing it from constantly having before her the mountains and vales of that beautiful country. Miss Broughton is about thirty years of age, spiritual in expression, with a light, quick, impatient manner. Her face is an intellectual one, with an appearance of will and active imagination. She has a good figure, of about the average height.

"WE cannot," says the New York Evening Post, referring to Appletons' "Collection of Foreign Authors," "too highly commend the plan of the series of books to which this one ('Gérard's Marriage') belongs. It is the purpose of the publishers to present in this collection the best works of the leading foreign novelists of our timethe word foreign' being used to signify other than Anglican, and the series will give to American readers the best of the current popular fiction of the Continental countries, supplying a recognized want in American libraries."

ACCORDING to a respectable Scotch newspaper, it takes five Highlandmen in Wick to post a letter. The first buys a stamp, the second pays for it, the third affixes it, the fourth puts the letter into the letter-box, and the fifth looks down the aperture after it. After this, it will take even Professor Blackie to make us believe in "the blind hysterics of the Celt."

THE Baden newspapers have just given publicity to an account of Auerbach's manner of working. It seems that each new creation of the author of the "Schwarzwälder Dorfgeschichten" is dictated by him to a short-hand writer. Auerbach, however, never allows the first draft to go to the press. He weeds out all the superfluities in this original stenographic edition of his story, and more than half the matter is frequently pruned away. The final copy delivered to the printer is invariably in Auerbach's own handwriting from beginning to end.

APPLETON & Co. will publish this autumn a series of School-Readers, by William T. Harris, Superintendent of Schools, St. Louis, Missouri; A. J. Rickoff, Superintendent of Schools, Cleveland, Ohio; and Mark Bailey, Professor of Elocution, Yale College; also a "New American History" for Schools, by G. P. Quackenbos, LL. D.

TAINE'S "Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise" will appear in a German version, from the pen of M. Leopold Katscher, the able translator of Taine's work on "Prerevolutionary France."

THE HOFFMAN HOUSE, on Madison Square, a fine marble building, is one of the most elegant in the city. Its beautiful decorations and its management are in keeping with its wide reputation. It is fully provided with all modern improvements. Its restaurant is noted for the excellence of its cuisine.