2 MAY 1874, Page 2

A curious bit of secret history came out in -Lord

Salisbury's speech on the same subject. IHe said he had recently received a letter from Lord Northbrook pointing out that the mortality among ., . the children was beyond the power of the Government to control.

Grant it, though it is not beyond its power under the village-relief system, and how does that justify the exclusion of the children from those reports of the number of deaths by famine, reports only_just discontinued, when it was found that in- the face of them no great subscription was obtainable? Lord Northbrook may be evetything the Marquis of Salisbury says he is, but he clearly is 'not able to get true reports from the underlings on whom that -duty fails. We can prove that one local officer reported more than twenty deaths himself as "starvation deaths," before the Viceroy -reported home the total deaths at twenty-one.