ly respected sheets were of this selfsame
variety.

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THE UNITED AMATEUR for November is heavily burdened with a sombre and
sinister short story from our own pen, entitled "The Alchemist." This is
our long unpublished credential to the United, and constitutes the first
and only piece of fiction we have ever laid before a critical and
discerning public wherefore we must needs beg all the charitable
indulgence the Association can extend to an humble though ambitious
tyro. A more interesting feature of the magazine is the biography of Mr.
Fritter, written by our brilliant Official Editor, Andrew Francis
Lockhart. Mr. Lockhart's quaint and friendly prose style is here
displayed at its best, giving a vivid and sympathetic portrayal of his
prominent subject. "Beyond the Law," by Mary Faye Durr, is a light short
story of excellent idea and construction, whose only censurable point is
the use of "simplified" spelling. We believe that some procedure of
quite drastic nature should be taken against the spread of this empty
innovation before our settled orthography shall have become completely
disorganized. Even in the United we can "do our bit." Our editors should
band together in an effort to exclude the new forms from their
publications, and our manuscript managers should see that every piece
passing through their hands is duly purged of these radical distortions.
At the same time, a series of articles explaining and analysing the
spelling problem should be given wide publicity. The poetry in this
issue is of encouraging quality. George M. Whiteside, in "Dream of the
Ideal," gives indications of real genius; at the same time displaying a
little of the technical infelicity which has marked his earlier verse.
Mr. Whiteside's greatest weakness is in the domain of rhyme, a
noticeable error in the present poem being the attempted rhyming of
=hours= with =bars= and =stars=. "I Know a Garden," by Agnes Richmond
Arnold, is a tuneful and beautiful lyric of a somewhat Elizabethan type.
The metre, as the lines are rendered, appears to be quite unusual; but
scansion reveals the fact that it is none other than the octosyllabic
couplet, disguised by the printer's art.

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THE UNITED AMATEUR for December begins with "A Girl's Ambition," a poem
by Margaret Trafford. The general idea of the piece is both ingenious
and appropriate, but the language and technical de