s for all the useful and ornamental virtues, and consequently
they make it plain and palpable that society is in a condition of
dangerous disease. Whether a remedy is practicable or not I will not
venture to decide; but I can confidently assure our reformers, both men
and women, that, if they can accomplish anything toward restoring its
normal and healthy courage to society, they will benefit the human race
much more signally than they could by making Arcadias out of a dozen or
two Borrioboola-Ghas.

REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

1. _Croquet._ By CAPTAIN MAYNE REID. Boston: James Redpath.

2. _Handbook of Croquet._ By EDMUND ROUTLEDGE. London: George Routledge
and Sons.

3. _The Game of Croquet; its Appointments and Laws._ By R. FELLOW. New
York: Hurd and Houghton.

4. _Croquet, as played by the Newport Croquet Club._ By one of the
Members. New York: Sheldon & Co.

The original tower of Babel having been for some time discontinued, and
most of our local legislatures having adjourned, the nearest approach to
a confusion of tongues is perhaps now to be found in an ordinary game of
croquet. Out of eight youths and maidens caught for that performance at
a picnic, four have usually learned the rules from four different
manuals, and can agree on nothing; while the rest have never learned any
rules at all, and cannot even distinctly agree to disagree. With
tolerably firm wills and moderately shrill voices, it is possible for
such a party to exhibit a very pretty war of words before even a single
blow is struck. For supposing that there is an hour of daylight for the
game, they can easily spend fifteen minutes in debating whether the
starting-point should be taken a mallet's length from the stake,
according to Reid, or only twelve inches, according to Routledge.

More than twenty manuals of croquet have been published in England, it
is said, and some five or six in America. Of the four authorities named
above, each has some representative value for American players. Mayne
Reid was the pioneer, Routledge is the most compact and seductive,
Fellow the most popular and the poorest, and "Newport" the newest and by
far the best. And among them all it is possible to find authority for
and against almost every possible procedure.

The first point of grave divergence is one that occurs at the very
outset of the game. "Do you play with or without the roquet-croquet?"
has now come to be the first point of mutual solicitu