JOURNALISM IN BENGAL* This little book of 129 pages is
both amusing and interesting. It errs, perhaps, in not giving sufficient credit to the fact that It was English missionaries who introduced the printing press into Bengali, that it was an English civilian who first devised Bengali type, and that Bengali newspapers and magazines are simply imitations of the journalism of the Anglc-Indians of Calcutta. It is natural, however, that Bengalis should have a patriotic pride in their achievements in journalism, and it must be admitted that, of all Indian peoples, Bengalis are now the equals of most European races in literature of all kinds,
permanent and ephemeral. It is probably not sufficiently recognized in Europe that the Bengali magazine known as the
&bid Petra, to which Rabindranath Tagore is a frequent contributor, is the Indian equivalent of our best and most solid publications in that sort. Tatgore's essays on metre alone, in the Sabuj Patra, are of remarkable literary importance and interest.
If this little book should run into a second edition,-its authors would do well to have their proofs read by some competent English friend. For, to be honest, some of the amusement to be had from this book is due to printer's errors and the use of - expressions that sometimes approach that ingenuous form of our language which is called " Baboo English."
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