The Hatchet - Throwers. By James Greenwood. With Illustrations by Ernest Griset.
(J. C. Hotten.)—Much in this book will make the grown reader laugh, and the illustrations will send children into hysterics. But if Mr. James Greenwood and M. Ernest Griset have aimed at more than this, we cannot think them successful. The humour of the writing is almost always strained, the humour of the pictures constantly degenerates into coarseness. Imagine an old sailor talking for some pages like the stage tar about " contrairywise," " un- possible," " constitootional," and "terry firmer," and then bursting out into fine English with "Never shall I forget the delicious sensation that thrilled through me, as I felt the delicious mouthful yield to the pressure of my teeth!" What should we have said if the late Mr. T. P. Cooke had come forward to the footlights, hitching up his trousers, and then began the soliloquy in Hamlet?
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