20 JANUARY 1900, Page 16

FRENCH OPINION ON THE BOER WAR.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—Permit me to send you a characteristic story a propos of French opinion on the Transvaal War. Our cook is a Basque, clever in her own science, but illiterate ; her son, a Government employ4, reads La Croix to her in the evenings, and her knowledge of the world beyond her kitchen filters through his mind and that of a Franciscan or two. Said Maria :—" Main comme c'est vilain de la part des Anglais d'attaquer ces Boers, qui sont bons Chtetiens et bons Catholiques, et qui se confessent cheque semaine! "—I Pau, France.