Mr. Gilbert Collins, a gentleman whose literary star has just peeped above the local horizon, has written novel called "The Flower of Asia." It is a very readable story, much after the manner of its many predecessors, and indicating an average uncommercial travellers' average talent for observation and sketching of character. A straight tale without any subtlety. pecially without subtlety when the hero of the story, saturated with enthusiasm for all things Japanese, arrives in Shanghai. Then it is Mr. Collins hits out straight from the fountain pen—or it may be, the portable typewriter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.