Captivity. By Roy Horniman. (Methuen and Co. 13s.)—This- is a
serious study of the psychological effect produced on a yltmg- man who at the age of seventeen is condemned to penal servitude for life for a murder of which he is entirely innocent. The author appears to consider that the whole prison system is so brutal as to. be a complete blot on. modern, civilization, but he makes- no suggestion as to any other way in which criminals should be-penis' hed ; and although the unfortunate Hugh Lestrange is condemned wrongfully he is condemned on evidence which is apparently of the clearest, and which leaves his friends evith only an instinctive belief in his innocence quite unsupported iby reason. At the end of• fifteen- years' excellent conduct he is released, and the more interesting part of the book begins. His fifteen yearshave had' an enormous effect on.- bier mentally, and the character which he develops -as the result- is minutely -and intelligently described by the author. Thee beak of his imprisonment; though not particularly successful from the point of view of fiction, is -worth reading, and gives a convincing account -of how hardly the rigourteof prison life tell on a man of education and refinement.
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