A "Literary Note" thoughtfully inserted in the fly-leaves of _The Elstones_ (HUTCHINSON) informs me that it will "make a strong appeal to all those who have experienced the suffering caused by religious conflict." It is not entirely because it has been my lot to escape the ordeal in question that Miss ISABEL C. CLARKE'S latest book failed to make the promised appeal. She takes two hundred and odd pages of peculiarly eye-racking type to convert the _Elstone_ family to Catholicism without indicating in any way how or why her solemn puppets are inspired to change their beliefs. Now and again a completely nebulous cleric happens along to perform the necessary function of receiving a moribund neophyte into the Church; otherwise the conversion appears to take place as it were by spontaneous combustion and not as the result of any visible proselytising agency. However the _Elstones_ bear no resemblance to real human beings--you can hardly expect it of people called _Ierne_ and _Magali_ and _Ivo_ and _Elvidia_ and names like that--so perhaps it doesn't matter how they came to see the great light. The important thing obviously from the authoress's point of view is to get them into the fold; and good Catholics who look at the end rather than the means may enjoy _The Elstones_. As a novel it will try them hard. * * * * * [Illustration: _Manager of Gasworks_ (_to aeronaut who has just had his balloon inflated_). "EXCUSE ME, SIR, BUT I WOULD LIKE YOU TO UNDERSTAND CLEARLY THAT OUR TERMS FOR GAS ARE STRICTLY CASH."] * * * * * HOW THE SECRETS OF ROYAL HOUSEHOLDS LEAK OUT. "'SO HOMELY AND NICE.' WHAT THE PRINCE SAID WHEN TOLD THERE WERE NO BATHROOMS."--_Daily Mirror_. * * * * * "It is a trifle, perhaps, that the author mispels the name of Varden in 'Barnaby Rudge,' and the name of Bucket in 'Bleak House.' Spelling is not of much consequence."--Mr. Arthur Machen in "_The Evening News_." So we observe. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919, by Various