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THE FORTNIGHT.
that individual, and am glad to discuss such live questions as Mr. Blaine's plan for distributing the liquor revenue, and the late Speakership contest. Further, students are always interested in politics; every young American should be interested in them, for the lowhest and humblest may by perseverance attain to the highest and most lucrative positions in the gift of the people.
So I would recommend, being of greater interest, that you devote most of your space to political and financial questions, leaving college matters to other departments. The Courier is now too much concerned in local issues to be read with interest by the general public, but by putting your best work on public themes you will greatly increase the reputation of your paper. I shall always look upon your work with interest. Very respectfully,
"VERGENNES."
FDITOR FORTNIGHT:
[1]
It appears to me that too much space is devoted in our college papers here to literary matter to the exclusion of all athletic news. The Eastern college papers devote considerable space in each issue to athletic sports and games. As you seem at liberty to make about what you please of your department, I would suggest that you endeavor to awaken more interest in the various athletic exercises. No one can deny that athletics are a good thing, and that we are very slow in them here. Let us have more interest in athletics.
Yours respectfully, L.
IV
EDITOR FORTNIGHT:
Sir—In response to your request for advice in reference to the manner in which your department of the Courier should be managed, I would say:
I have never had the management of any department of a magazine;but,if such are-
sponsibility were thrust upon me, after giving courteous attention to any suggestions from the public, I would manage the affair substantially to suit myself.
You are by no means, however, bound to take this advice. The aphorism that "It is more blessed to give than to receive," applies to kicks, medicine and advice. X.
We cannot see that * The Squatter Sovereign has much excuse for being. It is called a historical romance and is elaborately dedicated to the Pioneers of Kansas. The author has "collected and strung together the threads of fact, weaving them into a story with the golden woof of fiction," all with a result that is more easily imagined than described. The historical novel always has seemed a kind of hybrid animal, and this book is no exception.
The intrinsic interest of the history of those days is all that redeems the story from utter nothingness. Two or three good men are killed, but somehow you do not feel at all sorry, but are rather glad that the author has at last got her wooden figures off the stage. Places and names are disguised just enough to be mildly exasperating to the reader. The book is not very well made, the illustrations are not good, and the portraits of the female characters are positively ludicrous.
By force of being a "Kansas book" we understand that it has sold quite largely. But we enter a protest right here against the claim of such a book as this to represent Kansas. So good a novel as Howe's Story of a Country Town, recently noticed in these pages, we can send forth with pride to the whole country. But we do not see how any Kansan, having at heart the honor of the state in literature, could desire to send The Squatter Sovereign any where, unless, perhaps, to the paper mill.
* The Squatter Sovereign, or Kansas in the 'f0's. Chicago; Coburn & Newman Publishing Co. Sold by subscription.