10 OCTOBER 1896, Page 19

Two Bengalees have this week attracted much attention. One, named

Bose, a physicist in Calcutta, has made some researches in invisible electricity which have excited admiring astonishment in Lord Kelvin, while another, named Chat- terjee, has come out far at the head of the competitors for the Indian Civil Service. A third, Lieutenant Biswas, is said tc have displayed extraordinary gallantry in Brazil, but though his name is Bengalee we should like further information as to his lineage, and the causes which led a Bengalee to accept a commission in South America. The first two stories do not surprise us, who have always maintained that the Bengalee is the most intellectual of Asiatics, and far the superior of most Europeans both in subtlety of thought and the power of acquiring information. Indeed the superiority of his brain, at all events until he is thirty, is a political difficulty. If admitted to office by a fair system of competition he would in ten years monopolise office and render the administration of India impossible. The other races of India will not obey him, and as a rule he does not possess the kind of morale which is essential to the work of government.