Admiral Hewett, apparently under some impression that Osman Digna was
a rebel, or irritated by the slaughter of two messengers, who, for aught he knows, may have been executed as spies, or killed by mistake, issued a proclamation offering a reward of 21,000 for Osman Digna, "alive or dead." There are many precedents for the offer, which, if we mistake not secured the capture of Tantia Topee ; bat Osman is no rebel against us, and hardly one against the Khedive, whom as an invader he has a right to expel, if he can, and the offer is altogether opposed to modern customs. It is too like an offer to pay heavily for an assassination, and is not made in Europe even when a common murderer has escaped. The Government, therefore, at once disavowed the proclamation, but recognising that the Admiral had erred, from tradition, or a momentary failure of judgment, refused decisively to recall him. According to the latest tele- grams, Osman Digna, alarmed by the proclamation either for his liberty or his life, has fled to the hills ; but even if that is true, the device is an unworthy one. The French might have stopped an invasion by paying for the killing of Prince Bis- marck, but the world would have held it murder.
