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BOOK REVIEWS
back to the memory lovingly, even power-
fully, as the most living brain child of Mr.
Hewlett. He and his Sancha will remain,
while the passage of the poet Gervase
Poore and Mrs. Lancelot will be rapid,
eerie-like, not the vision the author claims
for her. (Published by the Century Com-
pany, New York. 400 pages. Price $1.35
net.)
AMERICAN       CITY    GOVERNMENT:
BY CHARLES A. BEARD
T HE subtitle of Mr. Beard's book, "A
     Survey of Newer Tendencies," is
     perhaps its best explanation, since it
deals less with politics and administration
than with the present social and economical
problems which must be met in the life of
large cities. The book is particularly timely
now when the interest in civic-improve-
ment is widespread and when the Ameri-
can people are awakening to the impor -
tance of a better city government.   Mr.
Beard advocates "home rule" for each city
as a protection against corrupt practices of
the State Legislature, and also on account
of the fact that each city knows best its
own difficulties. The chapters that treat
of the health of the people, their education
and industrial training; municipal recrea-
tion and city planning as well as one enti-
tled "Guarding the City against Crime and
Vice," are perhaps the ones likely to. be of
the greatest general service. Those who
know Mr. Beard's "American Government
and Politics" will find in the present volume
the same standard of conscientious work-
manship, and a like just treatment of his
subject. (Published by the Century Com-
pany, New York. Illustrated. 420 pages.
Price $2.00 net.)
RUSSIAN      WONDER       TALES:     BY
POST WHEELER
A WHOLLY charming contribution to
      folk-lore is this English version of
      the Russian skazki, a subject little
known to Americans. The author is the
first, so far as is known, to consider the
subject since Bain's Anglicized edition of
Afonasief's tales, which appeared in Rus-
sian in 1874. Before that Ralston's Rus-
sian Folk-Tales, published in 1873, was pre-
sumably the only presentation of Slavonic
myths in English. Mr. Wheeler could
scarcely have found a fresher field for his
initial work.
  Handed down for centuries from genera-
tion to generation, these "wonder tales"
sprang from the nature-myths of a pagan
people. Coming tinder the influence of the
Christian faith, their old symbolism and
primitive meaning gradually disappeared,
until at length only incoherent fragments
remained. These formed the nuclei for
other lore developed by the changed condi-
tions and life of the people. "So that the
skarki," says Mr. Wheeler, "as they appear
today, are less a cluster of individual tales
than an elaborate mosaic, with whose frag-
ments and color of incident the modern
adapter produces variant and highly-tinted
designs on the kaleidoscopic principle."
  Differing in some respects from the folk-
lore common to the Indo-European nations,
these Russian tales possess all the magic,
and employ all the artifices of the wonder-
lands with which we are familiar. From
the vast wealth of such lore throughout the
Russias, Mr. Wheeler presents twelve tales
as representative types, each being some-
what a composite, and he tells them to us
in good Western folk-lore style.
  The exquisite illustrations for this work
merit special attention. They are reproduc-
tions in color from the drawings of the Rus-
sian artist, Bilibin, whose interpretation of
the skazki through his brush "has made the
old myths glow again." (Published bv the
Century Company, New York. Illustrated.
323 pages. Price $2.50 net.)
LITTLE BOOKS ABOUT OLD FUR-
NITURE: BY A. E. REVEIRS-HOP-
KINS AND BY J. B. BLAKE
T HE third and fourth volumes in the
      series of "Little Books about Old
      Furniture" trace the development of
furniture from the time of Chippendale in
the middle of the eighteenth century to the
period of Hepplewaite, Sheraton and the
Adams Brothers in the first quarter of the
nineteenth century.   The books contain
some interesting descriptions of the life and
the people during the periods when this
furniture was produced. They are of in-
terest chiefly to the collector or to the pur-
chaser of moderate means who wishes to
acquire some knowledge of the "periods"
before buying, and who does not wish to go
deeply into the more academic questions
set forth in less "popular" books on furni-
ture. (Published by Frederick A. Stokes
Company, New York.       "The Period of
Chippendale," by J. P. Blake. Illustrated.