LITERARY NOTICES. 



705 



picions and fears about the dead which 

 can never be corrected, are aroused in 

 sorrowing but loving breasts by this 

 method of doing business." 



In commenting on the article, "The 

 United States Review " takes exception 

 to these statements, claiming that they 

 are not only totally inconsistent with 

 ordinary business self-interest, but con- 

 trary to the facts, and otherwise unjust 

 to the companies. Having no concern 

 in the matter beyond a desire that 

 the public shall be accurately informed 

 on the subject, we quote a part of 

 what the " Review " says on this point, 

 premising that, while it writes in the 

 interest of the insurance companies, 

 the tone of its article is both fair 

 and reasonable : " It is only just to say 

 that the companies now doing business 

 in this country have paid over ninety- 

 nine and one half per cent of the death- 

 claims which have been presented with- 

 out question, and they have paid a 

 large proportion of the remainder with- 

 out litigation. "When it is remembered 

 that certain ca-es of fraud arise which 

 it is the duty of an honest management 

 to unearth and expose, the proportion 

 of claims resisted is small. All cases 

 of compromise are brought within the 

 limits of the foregoing statement. It 

 is to-day a most unusual thing for a 

 company to contest a claim. Indeed, 

 we can point to an office founded twen- 

 ty-two years ago which has never yet 

 appeared as defendant in a suit to re- 

 cover under one of its policies." 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



History of the Pacific States of North 

 America. By Hubert Howe Bancroft. 

 Vol. I. Central America, 1501-1530. 

 San Francisco : The History Company. 

 Pp. 704. Price, $5. 



Thodgh late in the order of actual pub- 

 lication of the series of histories, this vol- 

 ume is the first in the order of classification, 

 and therefore rightly receives that number 

 when regarded with reference to the series 

 as a whole. The author's plan of logical 

 vol. xxxi. 45 



arrangement is to begin at the south of the 

 territory whose history he intends to record 

 in the whole work, and advance toward the 

 north ; and this order corresponds in the 

 main with the historical sequence. The 

 volume is introduced by a general preface, 

 giving a short summary of the plan of the 

 whole scries, and an elucidation of the the- 

 ory on which it has been composed ; matters 

 which have already been discussed at length 

 in our pages. The author avows the pecul- 

 iarity of his method of work to consist in 

 the employment of assistants, to bring to- 

 gether by indexes, references, and other 

 devices, all existing testimony on each topic 

 to be treated, whereby he obtains important 

 information, which otherwise, with but one 

 lifetime at his disposal, would have been 

 beyond control. Acknowledgment is now 

 made by name to five of these assistants. 

 The amplitude in volume of the work is 

 chargeable, the author says, "to the im- 

 mense mass of information gathered rather 

 than to any tendency to verbosity. There 

 is scarcely a page but has been twice or 

 thrice rewritten with a view to condensa- 

 tion ; and instead of faithfully discharging 

 this irksome duty, it would have been far 

 easier and cheaper to have sent a hundred 

 volumes through the press." The character 

 and customs of the aboriginal inhabitants 

 of the country at the time they were first 

 seen by their subduers, and what can be 

 gathered respecting their previous history, 

 are discussed in the volumes on " The Na- 

 tive Races of the Pacific States," which are 

 regarded as constituting a separate work 

 from this. The " History " series, includ- 

 ing the present volume on Central America, 

 begins, therefore, with the Conquest, with- 

 out reference to the matters treated of in 

 those volumes. For the " History of Cen- 

 tral America," besides the standard chroni- 

 clers and the many documents of late print- 

 ed in Spain and elsewhere, the author has 

 been able to secure a number of valuable 

 manuscripts nowhere else existing, including 

 some from the Maximilian, Ramirez, and 

 other collections, with all of Mr. E. G. 

 Squier's manuscripts relating to the sub- 

 ject. Much of the material has been drawn 

 from obscure sources, from local and un- 

 known Spanish works, and from the con- 

 fused archives of Costa Rica, Honduras, 



