I fancy that I ought perhaps already to know _The Wood-Carver of 'Lympus_ (MELROSE), which, hailing originally from America, seems to have made many friends over here before reaching me in its present form. I am glad, more especially at the present season, to extend a grateful welcome to so kindly and charming a story. Miss MARY E. WALLER has written a singularly refreshing and happy book, full of passages that reveal a great sympathy for country life and the hearts of simple people. _Hugh Armstrong_, the central figure, is a youth in a New England mountain farm, condemned to perpetual inactivity through an accident. At the beginning of the story we see him, in the depths of misery, visited by a casual passenger from the stage coach, whose attention has been caught by his story as related by the driver. Thenceforward things mend for _Armstrong_. The stranger interests him in wood-carving; orders pour in, which help to bring comfort to the farm; books and letters arrive from unknown city dwellers. Thus the tale is a record of increasing happiness, but kept (an important thing) from cloying by the tragedy upon which it is built. If you will not be put off by American dialect or by the rather startling discovery that one of the kindliest characters is named _Franz_, you will, I believe, find a brief stay upon '_Lympus_ most beneficial to your spirits. * * * * * HOW TO DEAL WITH YOUR BANKER. "The bankers of General Chang Tsolin, the Military Governor of Mukden, who suffered from financial troubles, were summarily executed by shooting on the charge of having disturbed the money market."--_Shanghai Mercury_. * * * * * "The DarDdaDneDlDleDs Commissioners sat again to-day at the House of Lords, when General Sir John Maxwell was examined."--i>Provincial Paper_. Please do not imagine that that is what the gallant officer called them. * * * * * "A LARGE BLACK DOG, no colour, strayed."--_The Times_. "THE LUCKY BLACK CAT, in all colours, made to order."--_The Queen_. This is the kind of thing that drives a chameleon mad. * * * * * End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917, by Various