One hundred years ago
It is a little difficult to understand the langour of the public interest in the Nile Expedition. The politicians are in- terested, or say they are, for they talk about it as long as their audiences will allow. The journalists are interested, for they record every fact and rumour, and make elaborate attempts to explain accounts, which are, we venture to say, the dullest, the most fragmentary, and the least intelligible, ever received ab- out any war since special correspon- dents were invented — except, indeed, the accounts of the present French campaign in Tonquin. The Expedition itself is one of the most romantic ever attempted; it will, it is admitted, cost millions, though not so many as the Egyptian correspondents of the Times wish to make out; and it causes such anxiety to the Departments that their chiefs, usually optimistic in public, on Monday spoke at the Guildhall with avowed hesitation, and a desire not to be too hopeful. There is, in fact, just that possibility of failure through treachery, which usually excites in- terest, and brings to the front the army of newspaper correspondents, who in most crises think that intelligence is confined to themselves alone. The pub- lic, however, remains indifferent.
Spectator, 15 November 1884
Previous page
