Cutlass and Cudgel. By G. Manville Fenn. (Griffith, Ferran, Okeden,
and Welsh.)—This is not quite so ambitious a story as some that Mr. Manville Fenn has written, and perhaps it would be using language of exaggerated eulogy to describe it as a historical novel. But it is quite as full of adventures and as readable as anything that has come from the same pen. It relates, as the title itself almost indicates, a conflict between smugglers and their natural enemies, as represented mainly by two plucky lads, Ram (or Ramifies) Shackle, and Archie Raystoke, a midshipman. Matters are delightfully complicated by the fact that Sir Risdon Graemeia landed proprietor, is in league with, and to a certain
extent a dependant on, the smugglers, and that ho has a pretty daughter, Celia, with whom Archie falls in calf-love. The life on board the revenue cutter is told with all Mr. Fenn's usual liveli- ness and fidelity to truth, and the cunning devices of the young rogue Ram, as well as the fight between him and Archie, will delight all boy-readers. All ends as well as could be expected under the circumstances, for Ram takes service as a regular man-of-war's man, and there is, in the last page, a prospect— though not a proposal—of marriage between Archie and Celia. As is common with him, Mr. Fenn conveys to his boy-readers a good deal of historical information in a quiet way.
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