Mr. C. J. WALTON, of Wolverhampton, writes to the _Birmingham Daily Gazette_ with reference to a recent appeal on behalf of the victims of the "Liberator" frauds. "I fail entirely to see," he says, "how a member of the Church of England can be expected to make the slightest sacrifice (except on the principle of Christian charity), seeing that the whole idea of the 'Liberator' scheme was to find funds for the agitators whose sole aim was the robbery and destruction of the Church of England as a national institution, and to get hold of its funds for secular and non-religious purposes." Dear me, dear me, how strange, how terrible, how muddle-headed. This poor politician has evidently got mixed up between the Liberator and the "Liberation Society." Let him take the hint, and send in his subscription. * * * * * OUR BOOKING-OFFICE. _The Convict Ship_, CLARK RUSSEL'S latest novel (CHATTO AND WINDUS), is redolent of the sea. There is no writer, not forgetting MARRYAT, who has such close companionship with the sea in its multiple forms and its many moods. The temptation to transfer some of the ever-varying pictures of the sea which sparkle in these pages is great but must be resisted. Here is a glimpse of night at sea, chosen not because it is best, but because it is shortest:-- "The mighty shadow of the ocean night was majestic and awful, with the wild, flashful colouring of lightning in the south, and the dustlike multitude of stars over the three glooming spires of our ship." [Illustration] One would suppose that, sitting down to write, CLARK RUSSELL had just come home from a long trip foreign, or at least lived his life somewhere within sight and sound of the sea. The pity of it is, my Baronite tells me, that this incomparable student of the sea, of ships that go down upon the waters, and of those who people them, lies at anchor on his sofa in an inland town. He has not looked upon the sea for a dozen years, nor smelt its brine, nor watched a ship coming or going. This makes the more marvellous the power of description of sea life in all its forms here displayed. Beyond this special gift, fascinating to some people, Mr. RUSSELL has a story to tell, a good stout sea story, full of life and adventure, through the devious movements of which we meet real men and one woman. Remembering that CLARK RUSSELL now ranks as a veteran novelist, it is pleasant to bear testimony to the fact that he seems to have saved his best wine to the last. _The Convict Ship_ is, take it from stem to stern, the best work he has yet turned out. THE B. DE B.-W. * * * * *