Miss Lonn has succeeded in writing a very interesting narrative and her book will hold the attention of a widely differing clientele. The student of American politics will find an illuminative study of this very remarkable period, and therefore much food for thought. But this book offers to the lover of fiction a new field. There is the hero, Warmoth, the villain, whose protraiture has been limned by a masterly hand. Little by little, sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly; sometimes by the words of his own mouth, oftener by the mouths of those whom he attacked, and almost constantly by the unfriendly newspapers, she deftly portrays the elements of his character. Warmoth had almost unlimited power and he used it like Cataline to corrupt the corruptible elements of the State. He was essentially a Nero, callous to the last degree and indifferent to the progressive anemia which was destroying the State's finances. Like Julius Caesar he attained his gubernatorial power by making multiple false promises and kept it by a species of corrupt practices which were incredibly vile. There is the tragic setting, the broken, maimed, devastated State of Louisiana, just out of the War of Rebellion and struggling hard to regain her "former glory." There are the carpetbaggers, irresponsible, predatory and indigent, of whom an army estimated to have been five hundred thousand strong invaded the State attracted as vultures by the rich pickings of political conquest. There are scalawags, remnants of the Confederate army, also indigent, nevertheless troublesome and among whom many brigands, murderers and cut-throats sprang up. There were respectable Republicans and Democrats, whites and blacks who formed the background for the tragedy of Reconstruction in Louisiana. There were also the Manichean gods of sharply defined good and evil, sanity and insanity, righteousness and corruption, civic pride and utmost indifference; murder, theft, malfeasance, ignorance and crass stupidity. All these thrown in the pot of political regeneration made a situation that was tragically immoral and horrific.