Revieic of Reviews, 2/S/06. 



THE BO OK OF TH E MONTH, 



THE BOLD BUCCANEERS OF THE WESTERN STRAND.* 



The Bold Buccaneer of the Western Main has 

 long been a familiar and romantic figure in the 

 annals of criminal adventure. Who is not familiar 

 with the blood-curdling tales of the pirates, the bri- 

 gands of the seas, whose rapacity was as insatiable 

 as their cruelty, who sailed their ships under the 

 Death's head and cross-bones, and who deposited 

 their ill-gotten treasures in some mysterious is- 

 lands of the Caribbean Seas ! In the midst of a 

 world hag-ridden by ethical scruples and paralysed 

 by Christian civilisation, 

 the Pirate stands out as 

 the supreme embodiment 

 of merciless avarice and 

 pitiless cruelty. Rightly 

 was he described and 

 treated as hostis hutnani 

 generis. In him all the 

 ordinary humane instincts 

 were inverted. In place 

 of trust there was treach- 

 ery' ; in place of com- 

 passion, ruthlessness. 

 Without compunction, as 

 without restraint, he 

 preyed ceaselesslv upon 

 his kind. He had the 

 appetite of the shark, the 

 cruelty of the tiger, and it 

 is counted as one of 

 the few unmistakable 

 advances of civilisation 

 that his place on the 

 high seas knows him 

 no more. Against him 

 Society waged ceaseles's 

 war, until at last tha 

 corsair has become a 

 more or " less mythical 

 ligure, and his familiar 

 method of disposing of 

 his captives survives 

 only as a picturesque 

 metaphor. There is a 

 certain appropriateness about the fact that the last 

 public execution that took place at Newgate was 

 the hanging of the three pirates of the Flowery Laud. 

 They were but miserable caitiffs who confined their 

 piracy to seizing the ship in which they sailed. But 

 tliev were strung up all in a row before the eyes 

 of all men, and the public executioner made his 

 public exit after stringing up the last degenerate 

 representatives of the Pirates of the world. 



•" Frenzied Finance." by Thomas W, Lawson. iW. Heine- 

 mann. 68.). and " HiRtory of the Standard Oil Company." 

 hv Ida M. Tarbell. 2 yols. Ulnstrated. (W. Heinemann. 

 24U.) 



Mr T. 

 Author of 



We thought we had got rid of Pirates. But, lo ! to 

 the confusion and dismay of the optimist, hardly has 

 the quicklime eaten away the carcases of the men of 

 the Flowery Land than we are summoned to witness 

 the evolution of a new race of Pirates. The Bold 

 Buccaneer of the Western Main was but a child in 

 the Kindergarten of piracy compared with the Bold 

 Buccaneer of the Western Strand, to whom the 

 British public is now introduced for the first time 

 in thf- lurid pages of Mr. Lawson's " Frenzied 



Finance." It is true that 

 we have had preludes pre- 

 paring us for the ghastly 

 record of piracy systema- 

 tised into a fine art Mv 

 old friend — now, alas ! no 

 more— Mr. H. D. Lloyd 

 of Winnetka, Chicago, in 

 his "Wealth against Com- 

 monwealth," lifted the 

 curtain slightly. Miss 

 Tarbell's story of " Stan- 

 dard Oil " never reached 

 the ear of the British 

 public, until Mr. Heine- 

 mann published her 

 " History of the Standard 

 Oil Company " in two 

 large octavo volumes. 

 Even Mr. Lawson's 

 vigorous exposure of the 

 exploits of the Bucca- 

 neers, which riveted at- 

 tention throughout the 

 States, hardly found any 

 echoes on this side the 

 Atlantic until the scandal 

 of the insurance frauds 

 last year rang through 

 the world. I was in the 

 heart of Russia at the 

 time, but even there the 

 stor}' of the New York 

 insurance frauds made 

 the ears of men to tingle. Mr. Heinemann has 

 now republished " Frenzied Finance " in London, 

 and everybody in the Old World has an opportunity 

 of gaining some insight into the methods of the 

 Buccaneers of to-day. It is only his methods that 

 have changed. The Buccaneer is the Buccaneer 

 still — merciless, insatiate, the incarnation of a dia- 

 bolical cross between the tiger and the shark. He 

 no longer sails the seas in the /oily Rover, 

 nor does he hoist the black flag. On the con- 

 trary, he is most careful to keep up the appearance 



. Lawson, 

 renzied Finance 



