PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED

Otago Witness, Issue 2812, 5 February 1908, Page 37

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED

The Review of Reviews for February contains several interesting items, as 's always the case when that veteran journalist, W. T. Stead, finds time to bo his own contributor. "£5 for Five Shillings" constitutes a picturesque dealing with the question of "nitro-bacterine," which ia the latest word coinage for what the Americans have long ago thrashed out exhaustively as "nitrag'en," and its fertilising miracles. To most of us the article reads with an undercurrent of humour in that the writer is so refreshingly unaware of how familiar the whokj topic hae long- been to those interested. The Character Sketch of the month deals with Sir Edward Grey, and by the time Mr Stead has finished ,his spirited sketch of the luckless head of " The Tchinovik of Foreign Office" there is not much left but a suit of clothes ! The "Interviews on Topics of the Month" are interesting, and deai with such widely different questions as "The South African Eldorado" and "The Present and Future of Korea." The caricatures this month are extremely good, and the pages devoted to the "Loading Articles in the Reviews" and the "Reviews Reviewed" are, as usual, the happiest hunting ground for the collector of mental odds and ends.

The Pall Mall Magazine for January is a very delightful number — so full of good thincs in letterpress and illustration, so varied and so broad in interest and treatment that one is sensible of a fresh access of admiration for the English magazine that comes nearest to American technical perfections. The cover is certainly below Pall Mall standards of art, but serves to remind one that Wells' s new story, "The War in the Air," begins in this number. Then there is a hitherto unpublished poem from "Lady Byron to Her. Lord," communicated by the Duke of Argyll. and a finely-illustrated article on the work of Mr F. Cadogan Cowper, the Academy's new associate, while Marie Van Vorst's very fascinating article entitled "Khartoum: A Winter Holiday," with its numberless illustrations, opens a very different field of interest both to the foregoing and to the sketch of "The Airship as a Destroyer," which reads as very apropos to Wells'a new eerial. So far, -so good : it would be ungracious to desire a more varied programme, but the excellence no less than the variety continue, for between the excellent short stories, of which perhaps Agnes and Ecerton Castle's "The Chip" is the most perfect, are distributed "The Reiarn of Pantomime," "A Hand-made Village." "Animals Before the Camera" all of th"m interesting and very comfortable padding, together with a graceful verse or two. -some smart dialosucs. and a fashion note to pack between the delights of such exciting storios as " Stories of a South Sea Buccaneer." "A Military Story,"* "The Sybil of Venice," etc.

The Austral Light for January is quite a bulky number, having descended to the wholesome frivolity of a little fiction to round off too severe austerities of its usual table of contents. There are several plea-santly-written articles, rich in quotation and of native literary merit, such as "Goin' Away," "Storied Windows," etc.. and others of a devotional character, such ac "The Church and the Aboriginal," "The Memorare in "Various Forms,"' etc.. and in addition to a lengthy review of "The Ring of Day" there is the monthly instalment of the eerial story and several pieces of devotional poctrv. The New Idea- for January, armed with that unfailine feminine draw of "something for nothing." which is comprised in three free pott-erne, oresenfs itself for notice. When one has threaded a devious path between advertisements of its own praises, merits and competitions, and the advertisements of other people's merits, good.?, and prices there is still a. residuum of general -matter : reading matter selected and readme matter arranged, plain, cold, or rechauffe, with sauce or without, on a truly feminine variety of topics, but largely absorbed by fashions and patterns, while Health, Cookery, Housekeeping. Reading. Fancywork, etc.. all have some useful if not exactly "new ideas."