love fairy stories, but they love facts too, and take them eagerly when kind voices and loving hands are the guides. The kindly, pleasant element is brought into this book through the friendly relations of two families who enter with zest into the enjoyment of the picturesque and historical South. Stories by Harriet Prescott Spofford, James Parton, Paul H. Hayne, and others, are agreeably interspersed. 145 THREE VASSAR GIRLS ON THE RHINE. THREE VASSAR GIRLS ON THE RHINE. By Lizzie W. Champney. Illustrated by Champ and others. Small 4to. Sold by Wanamaker, cloth, $1.35; boards, $1.00; by mail, 20 cents more. A book of travel over a conventional route, with a slender thread of story to give it individuality, sets one to wondering what it may have to do with Vassar College. As nothing is said to the contrary, and two of the girls are duly married at the end of the book, we may suppose they have finished their college careers with a legal right to the degree of A.B. Otherwise they are represented as intelligent, sensible girls of ordinary experiences, who take their travels with a mild flavor of literature and art. It is a pleasant book for girls of fourteen to sixteen; but what graduate of Vassar will call it a study of typical alumnæ of that far-famed institution? Rather, we think, she would sympathize with one who commented, more in sorrow than in anger, that the author was using the name of the College to advertise her annual book. The volume is well printed and has plenty of pictures, including many lively sketches by "Champ." A map of the Rhine valley from Bingen to the sea is ingeniously drawn for the inside of the cover. a nice book by itself a clear and simple statement of the workings of our government. And those who have not known about it, because their pet magazine is Harper's Young People or Wide Awake, may be assured that it is as entertaining as it is useful. The personal glimpses of the dignitaries of the page's time add to the vividness of the account; the pranks of the pages, who were not always subdued by the awe-inspiring dignity of the Senate, are related with evident zest at the recollection of them; and the slyly irreverent remarks, here and there, must be pardoned by even their victims, considering the amount of this quality that is born and bred in the young American politician. The following statement of the distinction between the Republican and Democratic parties can hardly fail to rouse a lively little discussion in more than one family circle: "A Democrat is a man who AMONG THE LAW MAKERS. AMONG THE LAW MAKERS. By Edmund Alton. Illustrated by W. A. Rogers and others. Small 8vo. Sold by Wanamaker, $1.90; by mail, $2.05. Many are the boys and girls who have read in St. Nicholas about the boy who was a page in the Senate at Washington from December, 1872, for nearly four years. Perhaps some of them will remember, with a little twinge of conscience, that there was a good deal of useful information beside the personal experiences in the little autobiography, and will be glad to have in thinks the country ought to be governed in a particular way, and a Republican is one who thinks the Democrats are always wrong, and therefore believes in governing the country in some other manner than the Democrats wish. That, in short, is what the distinction amounts to." CHIVALRIC DAYS. CHIVALRIC DAYS, AND THE BOYS AND GIRLS WHO HELPED TO MAKE THEM. By E. S. Brooks. Illustrated, 8vo. Sold by Wanamaker, $1.35; by mail, $1.54. Mr. Brooks has pursued the same plan in this book that made his Historic Boys so popular. Taking an interesting event in history he expands it into a most delightful story, adding fictitious characters where needed to fill in and fill out the historical details. Of the stories presented three have already appeared in the pages of St. Nicholas, viz., The Story of the Field of the Cloth of Gold, The Cloister of the Seven Gates, The Little Lord of the Manor. The others have been especially written for this volume. They are Cinderella's Ancestor, The Favored of Baal, The Gage of a Princess, The Tell-tale Foot, The Boys of Blackfriars, The Rede of the Elves, How the Queen Dined without Eating, and Monsieur, the Captain of the Caravel. The volume is handsomely printed and rich in illustrations. THE IVORY THE IVORY KING. By Charles F. Hold er. Illustrated, crown 8vo. Sold by Wanamaker, $1.50; by mail, $1.67. We assume from its subject and appear ance that this is intended as a young people's book, though many an "old boy "and" old girl" on once taking it up will become too much interested in its entertaining information to lay it down until finished. It is a popular account of the elephant from all points of view; a wellplanned, carefully studied, cleverly written, fairly illustrated, and generally capital book on its theme. The author is a man of some scientific tastes and knowledge, has investigated the elephant not in books but in proper person, and enlivens his chapters with a large amount of anecdote and narrative. The opening pages treat of the natural history of the elephant, his habits, and his intelligence, which Mr. Holder thinks gives him an advanced rank in the brute creation. Next there are chapters on mammoths and mastodons, those extinct members of the elephant family. Then the famous Jumbo comes in for a complete biography. After this follow accounts of hunting, capturing, and training the Asiatic elephants, which are a distinct variety from the African; of the sacred White Elephant of Siam; of baby elephants and trick elephants; of the ivory traffic in Africa; and of the elephant in art, in sport, in pageants, and in war. Very complete is the plan of the book and very thorough its method. Mr. Holder says that "to produce the 800 tons of ivory used annually nearly 75,000 elephants are destroyed," and his book is in a measure a plea for measures to Publishers' Weekly. preserve his race from extinction. Literary World. The Meeting of the Kings. (From a stained glass window by Oudinet of Paris, in the residence of W. K. Vanderbilt, Esq.. New York.)-From Chivalric Days. |