HART, SIR ROBERT

(1835-1911), Anglo-Chinese official; entered Consular service, China, 1854; inspector-gen. of Chin, Customs Gopartnent 1863; greatly increased revenues; his house, containing valuable official documents, burnt down in Boxer rising, 1900; retired in 1907, 1902), 6. in Albany, N. Y., in 1839: d. in Alders hot, Eng., May 6, 1902. In 1854 he was attracted to California then in the height of the gold excitement. After teaching school for a time and making a failure of gold-mining he became a compositor on the Golden Era, in which his early sketches appeared. Later he joined the Californian wherein his ‘Condensed Novels’ and parodies were published. Secretary of the U. S. Branch mint in 1864, he became editor of the Overland Monthly in 1868. in whose pages appeared The Luck of Roaring Camp. He went to New York in 1871 and wrote stories for the Atlantic Monthly until appointed U. 8. consul at Crefeld, Germany in 1878, and at Glasgow in 1880. After 1885 he made his home in London, Notable among his shorter fictions are Miggles, The Outcasts of Poker Flat and M’llis, 1871; An Heire of Red Dog, 1879; Flip, 18825 A Phyllis of the Sierras, 1888. Stories: The Bell Ringer of Angeles, 1894; A Problem of Jack Hamlin’s, 1894. Long stories and novels: Snowbound at Warf of the Plains, 1890; A Ward of the Golden Gate, 1890; Clarence, 1895; In the Hollow of the Hills, 1895; Three Partners, 1897. Poems: East and West Poems, 1871; Echoes of the Foothills, 1874; Some Later Verses, 1898. Bret Harte was at his best in short pieces, he was unequal to long flights. His continued residence in Hurope had a weake ening effect on later work,