Lord Beaconsfield has lighted another coloured fire to illumine India.
The Gazette of Friday week contains a decree creating another Order, this time of women only. It is called the "Im- perial Order of the Crown of India,"—by the way, is that crown made yet ?—and confers certain insignia or decorations on certain English and native ladies. These insignia are undescribed, but it is denied that they will consist of diamond nose-rings made in the highest Indian taste, and specially distinctive of the country. All the Princesses receive the Order ; the Maharanee Dhuleep Singh, a Copt, we believe, by birth ; seven great native ladies, chosen we do not know how, for Scindiah's wife and the wife of Holkar are both omitted, while the mother of the Guicowar is included ; and eighteen English ladies, wives of past and existing Viceroys, Governors, Secretaries, and Under-Secretaries for India. The omissions even in this list are unintelligible, Lady Lawrence not being included ; and the wives of all the Lieutenant-Governors, who are twice as powerful and independent as the Governors, are pointedly left out. No soldier's wife receives the dis- tinction, and only one lady who could claim it on account of direct service to the people, the Maharanee Hai Nomoyee, who is, we believe, the Lady Burdett Coutts of Calcutta. She deserves it, but she is head of a family of 'felis (oil-dealers by caste), and her name will not sweeten the gift to Indian Princesses.
