Markham's History of Peru.1 Charles H. Sergel and Company have done well in undertaking to publish a series of histories of the Spanish American republics. The recent wars in South America, and more particularly the recent difficulty between Chile and the United States, have drawn attention to those countries, and to the necessity that Americans should be familiar with them. The relations between all American nations are likely to be closer than they have been, so the demand for this information is likely to grow. 1 History of Peru. By Clements R. Markham. Chicago: 1892: Charles H. Sergel and Company. The opening volume of this series is a History of Peru, by Clements R. Markham. Peru's history from the days of the Incas to the present has been an interesting one. The somber tint of the story all through gives it a monotony that is depressing, but there are flashes of hope and gleams of heroism that happily grow more and not less frequent as the narrative proceeds. The old conquistadores were curious mixtures of bravery, devotion, savagery, and cruelty. They fought for the love of it, and killed Indians and killed each other with cheerful indifference. Throughout the history Mr. Markham's sympathies are on the side of the Indians, with the oppressed as against the oppressors. He is not unfair to the Spaniards because of this sympathy, and gives them due credit for their virtues in spite of it; but, nevertheless, it is the rebellion of Tupac Amoru that rouses his enthusiasm most, and when this last of the Incas is drawn asunder by four horses, after unspeakable tortures, Mr. Markham mourns more by far than he had when Pizarro was murdered, or at any other disaster to men of Spanish blood. In later times this same bent of mind leads the author to sympathize entirely with the Peruvians as against Chile. He pictures that war as an unwarranted aggression on the part of the little republic against its two big neighbors, carefully planned and prepared to take them at a disadvantage. This, it hardly need be said, does not accord with accounts of the causes of that war from Chilean sources, vide, e. g., Holger Birkedal, on "The Late War in South America," OVERLAND MONTHLY, January, 1884. Neither is this view quite in accord with rational probabilities, which indicate that it is extremely unusual for one person to make a quarrel. This evident bias of Mr. Markham discredits the authority of his book, and has only the merit of being so evident as to put on guard even the reader that is unfamiliar with South American history from other sources. It is hard for the Anglo-Saxon to sympathize entirely with either party in these wars, for they have been so invariably marred by savage excesses on the part of the victors, as the fortunes of war were turned one way and the other, as to cast a greater disgrace on victory than on defeat. Mr Markham is hopeful for the future of Peru. He thinks the period of useless wars is past, and the fear of wildcat financial operating by the government lived through. He looks for calm and steady improvement in material matters and in the stability of law and order. It is to be hoped his prophecies are more clear-sighted than his historical judgment. The book is well gotten up, with many and good illustrations, an inserted map, and a good index. Taken with the others of the series that are to follow, which will doubtless prove corrective, it will do good work. Mark Twain. THE biography of Mark Twain1 by Will M. Clemens is interesting only as an entertaining compilation of quotations and humorous anecdotes from the great humorist's works, bearing on many phases of his 1 Mark Twain, the Story of His Life and Work. By Will M. Clemens. San Francisco: The Clemens Publishing Co: 1892. 1892. Charles L. Webster & Co: New York: 1892. Paddles and Politics Down the Danube. By Poultney Bigelow. Charles L. Webster & Co.: Chicago: 1892. Songs of Sunrise Lands. By Clinton Scollard. Hougton, Mifflin & Co.: Boston: 1892. The Rose of the Alleghanies. Pub. by The Pittsburg News Co.: Pennsylvania: 1892. Writings of Christopher Columbus. By Paul Leicester Ford. Charles L. Webster & Co.: New York: 1892. Other Things Being Equal. By Emma Wolf. A. C. McClurg & Co.: Chicago.: 1892. Mark Twain. By Will M. Clemens. The Clemens Pub. Co.: San Francisco: 1892. Standard Arithmetic. By Wm. J. Milne, Ph.D., LL.D. The American Book Co.: New York: 1892. Mexican and South American Poems. (Spanish and English.) Translated by Ernest S. Green and Miss H. Von Lowenfels. Dodge & Burbeck: San Diego, California: 1892. Tales of a Garrison Town. By Arthur Wentworth Eaton and Craven Langstroth Betts. D. D. Merrill Co.: St. Paul, Minn.: 1892. Little-Folk Lyrics. By Frank Dempster Sherman. Houghton, Mifflin & Co.: Boston: 1892. The Tariff Controversy in United States, 17891833. By Orrin Leslie Elliott. Leland Stanford Jr. University: Palo Alto, California: 1892. THE Overland Monthly. Vol. XX. (Second Series).-December, 1892.-No. 120. THE RESTAURANTS OF SAN FRANCISCO. RESTAURANTS of "Beg pardon, sir, but you ordered it bun shops, to try in turn American, French, Spanish, German, Italian, and even Chinese repasts. I have taken beans and coffee for ten cents sitting on a high stool at Blank's Beanery in the most lowly company, and have dined in the dining room of a great hotel where an orchestra played waltz tunes, and the ladies at adjoining tables glittered with diamonds . and wore full evening dress. At one place of most modest appearance I was regaled with a very fair dinner, and to end it called for a cup of black tea. It was brought me without the usual little thick pitcher of thin milk. I mentioned the omission. San Francisco offers peculiar facilities for the play of a fad like mine. The large floating population and its cosmopolitan character have made restaurants numerous and very varied. There are about four hundred restaurants catalogued in the city directory for this year, and over a hundred more establishments that pass under the less pretentious name of "Coffee Saloons." There are also many bakeries where meals are served and oyster houses and other places where special sorts of food may be had till the total number must range well up to the thousand. It is impossible to find any system of classification under which they readily fall, for they grade into each other by insensible degrees. Far and away the cheapest place in the city is in a neighborhood where there are many factory and sewing girls, for their especial benefit. There is a pleasant room with many comforts, a piano, reading matter, etc., and the girls may go to it at the lunch hour, taking their own luncheons if they wish, and can obtain there bread, butter, soup, beans, milk, tea, coffee, or a sand VOL. XX.-49. (Copyright, 1892, by OVERLAND MONTHLY PUBLISHING CO.) All rights reserved. Bacon & Company, Printers. wich, at a cost of one cent for each. About a hundred girls go there every day, and they take three dishes apiece on the average, making the gross receipts of the place about $90 a month. The management is in the hands of the Young Women's Christian Association, but the monthly deficits, which amount to somewhat more than the receipts, are paid by one generous gentleman, who takes more satisfaction in the solid good this enterprise is accomplishing than he could get from many times the amount spent in other ways. The girls seem to appreciate the place greatly. They go there in increasing numbers, and after eating their luncheons, spend the remaining time of their half hour or hour's nooning in pleasant ways. One of them plays the piano, and a group gathers round her to sing the popular songs. The books and illustrated papers are also well used. A similar experiment for boys did not work so well, the portable objects about the place needing to be continually renewed. The girls' place is, so far as I can learn, the cheapest eating place known. The nearest approach to it is, I am told, a similar establishment at Berlin, where five pfennigs, or about a cent and a quarter, is the minimum price. Another lunch room of the same kind has lately been started by the same association that manages the first place, but the price of a dish is two cents instead of one. At this price receipts and expenditures ought to come out pretty nearly even. But these places that are run at a loss from philanthropic motives do not properly count as commercial enterprises. The cheapest places for men are supposed to be the so-called free lunches, though this is probably a mistake; for these free lunches are attached to bars, and it is expected that their guests shall patronize the bar sufficiently to pay all favors they get in the way of free food. In the cheapest of these places a glass of beer at five cents entitles a man to help himself to sundry pretzels, crackers, bits of cheese and sausage, and a salt pickle or a radish : a repast intended to provoke thirst rather than to satisfy hunger. A few places give crab salad, also bouillon or clam chowder. In most M.J.S. THE FINISHING TOUCH. of the "bit" saloons, the fifteen cents non-alcoholic, and not even the barpaid for a single drink or the twenty-five keeper will sneer at you, unless he suscents, "two bits," paid if you have a pects you of doing it as a regular thing. companion, gives free access to a coun- Nevertheless the tendency is not to be ter supplied with a considerable display content with such simple drinks, and of eatables in addition to those men- at best there is the patronage and countioned. Cold roast beef, corned beef, tenance given an unholy business. sardines, olives, sandwiches of various kinds, bread and butter, clams, clamjuice, bouillon, and similar viands. To At several places the bar is run in connection with a grill room arrangement, where the visitors sit at a counter and |