Filipino Stories.

The anting anting is both talisman and fetich: it is the Filipino version of good medicine, and it combines in its poor little self attached to precious stones, to witches’ charms, and to the gifts of the Grecian gods. Mr. Sargent Kayme’s “Anting-Anting” stories describe certain of its works and acts, and give the native Filipino of unmixed blood a place in American fiction. He is about as agreeable as the North American Indian, and represents as many shades of savagery as lie between the Iroquois and the Thlinkit. but he is new, and his wickedness is of a new flavor; his honor, such as it is, is of a new color; his ambition is of another quality, and such enlightenment as he has received from the white man differs in every way from that received by the Eastern Indians from the French and the English. Mr. Kayme tells eleven stories of him, and tells them cleverly, with no attempt to imitate Mr. Kipling, but suiting his style to his subject, and his small volume is excellent reading. The American element introduced is sometimes military, sometimes scientific, but the Filipino has the chief place, and much may be expected from him. The curious in these matters will desire to compare him with Mr. Wildman’s Malays of the peninsula rather than with the tribes of the Indian Empire, but it should be remembered that the United States hold him in trust, and unless they wish to feel once more the bitter self-reproach with which they regard their treatment of the Indian they must learn to understand him.

Anting-Anting Stories. By Sargent Kayme. Pp. vi.–235. Boston: Messrs. Small, Maynard & Co. $1.50.