ary to collect funds. Upon which he was again pointedly told that the League would be very glad to receive any money he might collect, but would not send him over as its representative.

Finally, some one thought that Moore might help in a journalistic way, and suggested his calling on the editor of The Claidhéam Soluis. So the next morning Moore did so, and found "a couple of rough-looking men, peasants, no doubt, native Irish speakers," who "sat on either side of a large table with account-books before them," and who told him that the editor was not in. Moore, however, was too full of his business to wait. "Your Vice-President MacNeill sent me here," he told the "subs." "He would like me to write an article. I am George Moore." "I'll tell the editor when he comes in," was the answer. "And if you'll send in your article he'll consider it. The next few numbers are full up." Moore was taken aback at this. He! the great George Moore, to be told his article would be "considered"! Still, he retained his composure and replied: "I appreciate your independence, and I'll submit an article, but in England editors are not quite so Olympian to me."

Staking a Claim

Since Zola first preached the necessity of careful documentation in fiction, the habit of going to some little trouble to secure literal accuracy in material facts has become fairly common among the younger novelists; but it is a question whether any new writer ever started in to secure material in a more disillusioned and business-like manner than Miss Ida Vera Simonton, author of a West African novel, Hell's Playground, reviewed elsewhere in this issue. Miss Simonton is an American by birth, her native city being Pittsburgh; her antecedents, so far as she has seen fit to divulge them, reveal no pioneering spirit, no connections with the strange and distant jumping-off places of civilisation; her family were neither explorers nor traders nor missionaries: in short, there was nothing in her genealogy or early life that would seem in even the remotest way to connect Miss

Simonton's horoscope with the African West Coast. But when she found herself practically alone in the world, with slender resources and the stern necessity of earning a livelihood, she decided to write books, but not from the motive that leads so many other impecunious novices astray: namely, that writing requires no preliminary outlay of capital, beyond pen, ink, and a pad of paper. On the contrary, Miss Simonton treated the proposition in the same practical spirit as though she were preparing to acquire the good will in a notion shop or a restaurant. She studied the problem of the most advantageous "locations" and the comparative cost; she took a map of the world and satisfied herself to what extent each subdivision of each continent was already preëmpted by other novelists. And when she decided that of all the world the Congo region came most near to being a virgin field, she promptly invested her small patrimony in a necessary outfit, a steamer ticket, and a letter-ofcredit, which with careful economy should provide for a two years' residence. Then she made her plunge into the Dark Continent, alone and without a single human being awaiting her arrival.

Miss Simonton's ability as a writer. her powers of observation, and her rather startling frankness of narration are matters which find their proper place in connection with the review of her book. But it is interesting to know that almost all the important details of its contents are based upon existing conditions, as Miss Simonton saw and understood them. In her opinion, the native Congo negro is a hopelessly degraded savage; missionary work in this field, she insists, is worse than useless, since it means only the squandering of valuable human lives, with practically no return. The native is inherently unmoral and without shame; his one reliable source of income is the sale or renting out of his women; and the consequent corruption and degradation of the white residents forms a chapter in human weakness that must have required some courage to write. For the benefit of those who read Hell's Playground, it may be mentioned specifically that among the details taken from life

are the scene of the birth of the negro child on the steamer's deck; the struggle of the hero to live a spotless life, for the sake of the English girl left at home, then her readiness to believe a false story about him, and her breaking of the engagement; and after that his loss of grip upon life, and his gradual disintegration under the combined influences of whiskey and the dusky charms of "La Gabonaise." Even the bungalow which was set aside for this ebony Venus was in all its details drawn from life, although when Miss Simonton saw it, neglect and the ravages of the climate had brought it to a rather tumble-down state. Miss Simonton's studies of West African conditions extended to residence in the French, Belgian, and English spheres of influence. Of the cruelty and oppression practised by foreigners she speaks with unmitigated frankness, drawing comparisons that are strongly in favour of England. It is now more than two years

ELIZABETH ROBINS

since Miss Simonton's return to America, and during intervals in her work upon Hell's Playground, she has lectured before women's clubs in Cleveland, Pittsburgh and elsewhere, on the condition of women in West Africa. The horrors of her two years in Congo still linger with her, and she vows that nothing on earth would induce her to return. Her health is still much shattered by hardship and illness, and at regular recurring intervals she is still prostrated for days at a time from lingering effects that she attributes to an attack of the Sleeping Sickness. The book, it may be noted, represents the patient labour of four years, two in gathering material and two more in writing and revising, before it was brought to its present form.

on the day of publication to learn the further adventures of the characters of Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White. These we regard as the days of great serials, maintaining that no real serial has appeared since George Du Maurier's Trilby. But now and then there comes a story which in serial form brings a decided response. Such a one was Owen Johnson's Stover at Yale, and another, according to the publishers of McClure's Magazine, is the new serial by Miss

FRANÇOIS DE TESSAN

Elizabeth Robins. The story may alliteratively be described as a tale of three titles. First it was known as The Grey Hawk of the World, then as My Little Sister, when it eventually appears in book form in this country, while in England it will be published under the title Where are You Going To?

For some years after the beginning of her literary career Miss Robins concealed her identity behind the pseudonym C. E. Raimond. At that time she was also an actress playing Ibsen parts. As C. E. Raimond she issued The Fatal Gift

of Beauty, George Mandeville's Husband, New Moon, and The Open Question. The last-named book was something of a sensation in England and aroused the curiosity that led to the discovery of the authorship. Miss Robins was somewhat exasperated by her inability to preserve her disguise, and contributed a long letter to a London daily newspaper, deploring that as it had been discovered that she had acted in The Master Builder it would be impossible to have her books criticised without reference to the influence of Ibsen.

Another Critical Visitor

M. François de Tessan, a very observant French journalist, who has been in this country for the past year or two in the interests of the Matin, of Paris, has just brought out a volume of certain of his American impressions under the title Promenades au Far West. Now, considered seriously Promenades au Far West is a very good book of its kind, written by a man whose knowledge of this country has not been acquired by a mere two weeks' visit to our shores. Summing up all of its three hundred and forty pages, we could not do otherwise than characterise it as an exceedingly creditable piece of work. But permitting ourselves to emphasise trivialities, we find a number of these amusing, though perhaps unessential, little touches which are always to be found in the book of a Continental critic. A month or two ago we expressed doubts that the American artist who illustrated Mr. Arnold Bennett's Your United States in its serial form had ever seen a "Cheer Leader" in action. There was nothing the matter with Mr. Bennett's text, but the illustration accompanying it certainly surprised

us.

Now M. de Tessan in his description of a foot-ball contest between Stanford Leland and the University of California throws an added light on the subject. He informs us gravely that the "Cheer Leader" is also called the "Yell Master." Also worthy of a place with Victor Hugo's "Tom Jimjack" and Paul de Kock's "Lord Boulgrog" is M. de Tessan's "Les Jincks," certain festivities. which are a feature of the life of the Bohemian Club of San Francisco.