LITERARY NOTICES. 



851 



solved to be a missionary ; studying for that, 

 he lost his faith in dogmatic Christianity, 

 but found his religious ideals purified, and 

 became a missionary of a religion which 

 knows no dogmas ; which is not in conflict 

 with Christianity ; which can never come in 

 conflict with science, and is not in conflict 

 with any other religion ; " for it is the goal 

 and aim of all religions." 



Very different from the reverential spirit 

 of Dr. Carus's Homilies is the tone of Mr, 

 G. H. Martinis Antidotes for Superstition, 

 which comes to us from Watts & Co., Lon- 

 don, and which we can only describe as a 

 vehement attack on Christianity, its origins 

 and purport. In the first chapter — on 

 Christian Veracity — the charge is made 

 that the method of teaching biblical history 

 and chronology in the seminaries " is one of 

 organized misrepresentation and systematic 

 concealment of facts," and that the rest of 

 Christian instruction is of the same kind. 

 In the second chapter the essential spirit of 

 Christianity is described as " a most malign, 

 subtle, and Protean spirit." The assignment 

 of other similar traits is followed by at- 

 tempts to show, in Christianity before 

 Christ and Pre - Christian Gospels, that 

 what is good in Christianity is of more an- 

 cient origin and is common to pagan re- 

 ligions ; and by " ammunition for our re- 

 cruits " in the shape of supplied answers 

 for persons unskilled in debate, to the argu- 

 ments of the apologists for Christianity. 



The Commission of Fish and Fisheries 

 has issued the Beport of the Commission for 

 18S7, which covers the whole of that year 

 and the first half of 1888. Future reports 

 will cover the fiscal year of the Government 

 instead of the calendar year, as heretofore. 

 In the summer of 1887 occurred the death 

 of Prof. Baird, who had been commissioner 

 since 1871. The duties of the office were 

 performed for about six months by Dr. G. 

 Brown Goode, and the Hon. Marshall McDon- 

 ald was then appointed commissioner. The 

 work of the eighteen months covered by 

 this volume is reviewed in the commissioner's 

 report, and to it are appended an account of 

 the Fisheries of the Great Lakes, by H. M. 

 Smith, M. M. Snell, and J. W. Collins; a 

 Report upon the Division of Fisheries, by 

 J. "W. Collins ; reports on the distribution of 

 fish and eggs by the commission, and on the 



work of the steamer Albatross ; reports on 

 the construction and equipment of the 

 schooner Grampus, by J. W. Collins ; on the 

 operations of the Grampus, by J. W. and 

 D. E. Collins ; a Review of the Labroid 

 Fishes of America and Europe, by David 

 Starr Jordan ; a paper on Lake Superior En- 

 tomostraca, by S. A. Forbes ; and one on 

 Entozoa of Marine Fishes of New England, 

 by Edwin Linton. All these papers are fully 

 illustrated. 



The Sixth Annual Report of the Commis- 

 sioner of Labor, being the report for 1890, 

 is devoted to statistics of the cost of pro- 

 ducing iron and steel. It makes a volume 

 of fourteen hundred pages, and is divided 

 into three parts, of which the first gives the 

 cost of labor, raw materials, and other ele- 

 ments that enter into the total cost of pro- 

 duction ; the second is devoted to the time 

 and earnings of laborers, and the efficiency 

 of labor; while the third part, comprising 

 eight hundred pages, shows the cost of the 

 laborers' Uving, in detail. Establishments 

 in Great Britain and on the continent of 

 Europe, as well as in the United States, were 

 included in the investigation. This is one 

 of the reports on the cost of producing 

 dutiable articles which are called for in the 

 act of Congress establishing the Department 

 of Labor, and throws a vast amount of light 

 upon the question of how much protection 

 the iron and steel industries need in order 

 to continue the present wages of American 

 workmen. 



The fifth of the lists of special classes 

 of novels, compiled by W. M. Grisivold, is a 

 Descriptive list of British Novels (the au- 

 thor, Cambridge, Mass., $2), comprising over 

 nine hundred titles. Each entry is accom- 

 panied by from a few lines to half a page 

 of description, which in most cases is taken 

 from a review in some prominent literary 

 periodical. We can join heartily with Mr 

 Griswold in the hope that " the publication 

 of this and similar lists will lessen, in some 

 measure, the disposition to read an inferior 

 new book when superior old books, equally 

 fresh to most readers, are at hand." There 

 are no antiquated books in the list before 

 us — the oldest that we note arc some of 

 George Eliot's which appeared in 1859 and 

 1860. Surely no apology is needed for go- 

 ing back far enough to include these. 



