Chums. (Cassell and Co.)—We have nothing new to say about
this " illustrated paper for boys," for it is certainly not new when we express a certain surprise to see how the average of interest is kept up. It is quite impossible to do more than dip into so big a store of things as this. But wherever we have picked out a sample, it has been of good quality. Such short stories as " Adrift on an Iceberg " and " Stranded on an Iceberg " are as good of their kind as any one can desire, and they are only samples of a quantity which is to be counted by scores. Among the miscellanea we notice a brief description—it might well have been longer—of an Arab school. The apparatus is strangely simple, but so would that of an English school a hundred years ago seem to the boy of to-day. "Life in a Railway Booking-Office" is full of curious facts. We see that machinery is to come to the help of the booking clerks, doing away with the necessity of keeping a stock of tickets. The " interviews " are as interesting as usual. Mr. Louie Backe was in a more optimistic mood than he commonly is when he describes life in the South Seas. His story of being cast away in a canoe with two native children is a delightful little bit which we should like to transfer to these columns. Some experiences of Mr. Sandow are as marvellous as anything in the volume. Asked whether he could lift a, piano that was in the room, he replied, " Oh ! there's nothing much in that ; I can lift an ordinary piano with a man sitting on it with one hand." His dumbbells weigh 170 lb. each ! The story of how he broke all the strength-testing machines in an Australian town three times over is very amusing. He paid his penny, and then pulled the testing handle right out. It made him famous at once. The town believed it to have been the work of a gang of ruffians, and was not a little surprised to ace one stoutish-looking lad of nineteen.
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