A Voice from the Sea ; or, the Wreck of
the 'Eglantine.' By the Author of Margery's Christmas-Box." With a Preface by Samuel Plimsoll, M.P. (Hodder and Stoughton.)—" If I thought," says Mr. Plimsoll, in his preface, "there was any statement in this book, or any suggestion of circumstance, other than what had its counterpart in real life, and in cases dreadfully numerous, I should not think it right to accept its dedication." And he adds the remarkable fact, which has a direct bearing on the plot of the tale, that the chief surveyor of Lloyds' has never, in an experience of thirty years, known of a single ship being broken up voluntarily. The story is well planned and well told. Richard Hilyard, a Liverpool shipowner, purposes to send to sea a ship which ho knows, from the report addressed to him by a surveyor, to be unfit for a long voyage. The crow suspect that something is wrong, and the son, who has no share in his father's counsels, undertakes to satisfy them. He demands to see the report, but the father refuses. It then seems to him that the only way left by which he can satisfy the crow is himself to sail with them. Richard Hilyard is put into the dilemma whether he will risk his only son by sending him to what may well be his death, or will own his wrong-doing by keeping back the ship. How he decides the title of the story sufficiently indicates. How the story ends we shall leave our readers to find out for themselves. They may spend an hour
* very profitably in doing so.
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