The Russians are in a very bad temper with England
just now. Their semi-official journals say that the English dislike to the plans of the Brussels Conference for limiting the horrors of war—that is, for punishing peoples for rising to resist an in- vader—is mere "hypocrisy," and that its motive is the desire to keep up the present practices of maritime warfare. As France and all the minor States agree with us, and most of the latter have no fleets, the charge is a mere explosion of bitter feeling, as is also the charge that we have sent agents to sell rifles to the Turcomans on the Attrek. British rifles may be there, for what we know, for the British rifle goes everywhere, to St.. Petersburg included, but Lord Northbrook is certainly not expending either British money or British officers in any such work. It is difficult to imagine that the journals which circulate such. charges believe them, or that they are printed for any pur- pose except to excite a prejudice against Great Britain. If so, the effort would seem superfluous. All men on the Continent believe that England is utterly selfish, and that belief being rooted, there is no need of proving the charge in detail.
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