The papers oftenest taken in a country household or small library are a daily or semi-weekly from the nearest large town or city, a religious weekly, and an agricultural weekly or monthly, sometimes all three, oftener only one or two, and it is from the notices and advertisements with quoted notices in these papers that estimates of books must often be formed. Libraries and library trustees who send book lists from such sources as these to a state public library commission are often surprised that they do not receive what they ask for, and write anxious inquiries as to why certain books have not been bought. "There surely can be no objection to them," they say, "for we took the titles from reviews in the ---- or ---- or ----," naming denominational papers. Now, lest the Children's Section should be accused of unfairness and denominational prejudices, I shall quote no reviews from these papers, except one which came from a leading religious weekly taken by the household in whose pew I have a seat. It is of Eden Phillpotts' "Human boy," a series of sketches of English schoolboy life, which is dismissed with this remarkable sentence: "The scene here, too, is in the west, and various hunting experiences are recorded." The librarian who orders that book for boys greedy for big game will be disappointed! Such a mistake as this is not common, but reviews in both religious and secular papers are often perfunctory and meaningless. One reason of this is that many books are published for the Christmas trade, between the 15th of September and the 15th of December, when they come into newspaper offices with a rush, until they are piled in stacks on the desk of the hapless reviewer, and hastily noticed, sometimes by title only. In a new edition of Elizabeth Sheppard's fine, but forgotten novel, "Rumour," whose keynote is the quotation from "Lycidas" on the title-page, "Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set off to the world, nor in broad Rumour lies, But lives and spreads aloft in those pure eyes And perfect witness of all-judging Jove," the reviewer did not understand the meaning of the lines, and called the book "a good example of the working, influence, and effect of rumour." On one of our own local papers not long ago there was a review of Mrs. Barr's "Maid of Maiden Lane," which was referred to as the sequel to her "Beau of Orange River." Even in newspapers fortunate enough to command the services of specialists for history and science, and an additional critic for novels, the children's books are hastily noticed, sometimes by the youngest reporter in his spare minutes. In smaller offices the task of reviewing all books falls to the hard-worked editor, who is, like Jacob Riis, also his own "reporter, publisher and advertising agent," but whose sense of literary values is often not in proportion to his knowledge of state politics or local reforms.