21 MARCH 1896, Page 16

"BULLS."

[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Persons who attribute either " bulls " or good sayings to the wrong people should be put to death, or obliged to copy out with their own hands the whole of "L'Esprit des Autres " and "L'Esprit dans l'Histoire." Both the " bulls " attributed by your correspondent "E.," in the Spectator of March 14th, to the late Sir George Campbell, were made by Sir George Balfour, a very different man. I beard him make both. It should be observed, too, as to the first of them, that t he orator was not speaking about an "abuse in Indian ad- ministration ; " he was speaking about a proposed loan of £2,000,000 by the British to the Indian Treasury. He was indignant at the smallness of the sum, and described it accordingly as a flea-bite in the ocean." I once repeated that story to an eminent Indian public servant, who told me that when he was attending the Law Courts, during his training for the Civil Service, he heard a counsel (who was urging upon a jury the propriety of giving very large damages in a case which he was conducting for the plaintiff), use the very same expression. " What !" said the astonished Judge, "what did he say ? " "He said, my Lord," replied an officer of the Court, "hit's a flea-bite in the hocean !"—