s life as an artificial raspberry-pip
maker and amasses a colossal fortune in the Argentine grain trade,
marries a poor seamstress in his struggling days, but deserts her
for a brilliant variety actress, who is in turn deposed by (1) the
daughter of a dean, (2) the daughter of an earl, and (3) the daughter
of a duke. Ultimately Jasper Dando, for that is his name, leads a
crusade to Patagonia, where he establishes a new republic founded on
Eugenics, China tea, and the Prohibition of the Classics. Mr. Pitts
thinks it the finest thing he has done, and he is fortified in this
conviction by the opinion of Mr. Stoot, the principal reader of the
House of Boffin.

* * * * *

We are glad to hear that Mr. Hanley Potter will shortly issue, through
the firm of Bloomer and Guppy, a selection from the reviews, notices
and essays contributed by him to _The Slagville Gazette_. "They are
interesting," says the author, "as the expression of a fresh and
unbiassed mind, unfettered by any respect for established reputations
or orthodox standards." The titles of some of the articles--"The
Dulness of Dante," "The Sloppiness of Scott," "George Eliot as
Pedant," "Jane Austen the Prude"--indicate sufficiently the richness
of the treat provided in these stimulating pages.

* * * * *

The Centenary of JANE AUSTEN is to be celebrated in a thoroughly
practical manner by the House of Hussell. It will be remembered
that, some thirty years ago, an effort was made to revive the waning
popularity of SIR WALTER SCOTT by the issue of a series of condensed
versions of his novels, in which redundant passages, notes and
introductions were removed and the salient features were compressed in
a compact and animated narrative. In order to render justice to JANE
AUSTEN the process needed is diametrically opposite. JANE AUSTEN'S
novels are short and singularly lacking in picturesqueness, emotion,
colour. Mr. Hamo Bletherley, who has been entrusted with the task
of infusing these elements into JANE AUSTEN'S staid and reticent
romances, points out that her vocabulary was extraordinarily limited.
Her abstinence from decorative epithets led to results that are bald
and unconvincing. One may look in vain in her pages for such words
as "arresting," "vital," "momentous" or "sinister." She never uses
"glimpse," "sense" or "voice" as verbs. We look forward with eager
anticipation to the results of Mr. Blethe