What right, we must ask, has Mr. Ellis thus to
pour ridicule and contempt upon the men who have enlisted under the British flag ? Mr. Ellis once asked for "a stream of facts" in order to present the Boer case to his fellow-countrymen, but why did be not get "a stream of facts" before he mocked the physical condition of a portion of our newest soldiers, and taunted them with their origin and their poverty? Is it their fault that they were not born tall and well-to-do ? If Mr. Ellis had inquired, as the present writer has done, he would find that these so called starvelings of the slums can show both strength and courage. Many of them got on a horse's beak
for the first time when they were tested, and yet the riding. masters, though amused by their utter ignorance, were astonished by their extraordinary pluck and enterprise. We deeply regret that Mr. Ellis, for whom we had always felt no little respect, should have thus exhibited the taost detestable form of class prejudice,—the physical contempt that the poor inspire in the unsympathetic and ungenerous portion of the well-to-do.
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