“Or life among the agricultural labourers of Ireland.” “All the facts relative to the agricultural labourer in these pages can be vouched for.”—(Pref.). Describes vividly the long struggle of a labourer against adversity, the evils arising out of the competition for the land. A graphic picture of the conditions of the poor. Scene: Co. Limerick in the years from 1847 to 1880 or so. The writer was a carpenter working at Ardagh, who afterwards went to America. The chapters relating to a parliamentary contest are less valuable than the rest of the book. Lecky, in his “History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century” (Vol. 3, ch. 8, pp. 413-14 in a footnote), speaks of the book as “one of the truest and most vivid pictures of the present condition of the Irish labourer.”
VAIZEY, Mrs. G. de Horne.
⸺ PIXIE O’SHAUGHNESSY.
Scene: first, a fashionable English girls’ school, afterwards a half-ruined castle in the West of Ireland. The book is taken up with the amusing scrapes and other adventures of a wild little Irish girl, and with the love affairs of her sisters. Gives a good, if somewhat overdrawn, picture of Irish character, especially of traditional Irish hospitality.
⸺ MORE ABOUT PIXIE. (R.T.S.). 6d. 1910.
⸺ THE FORTUNES OF THE FARRELLS. Pp. 190. (Leisure Hour Library Office). 6d. 1911.
VANCE, Louis Joseph.
⸺ TERENCE O’ROURKE, Gentleman Adventurer. Pp. 393. (E. Grant Richards). 1906.
Thrilling adventures of a penniless soldier, who goes about Don Quixote-wise rescuing distressed damsels—each more beautiful than the last—fighting duels, and so forth. A good story of its class, and free from anything objectionable.
VEREKER, Hon. C. S., M.A., F.G.S.