The Pall Mall Gazette of Saturday last, intended, in its
ern courteous and condescending way, to be terribly hard on the Spectator for the ignorance, presumption, and other unpleasant characteristics of our articles, extending over four years, on the Eastern question. After reading it twice we could not help think- ing of Mr. Toots's reply to the Chicken, when he proposed to "double up Mr. Dombey." " Chicken," said Mr. Toots, "your language is coarse and your meaning is obscure." However, our Mentor's language was not exactly coarse, though it was awfully severe, evidently basing itself on the maxim, 'Spare the rod, and spoil the child ;' but obscure it certainly was, in the highest possi- ble degree. As far as we can understand the character of the charges laid against us, they are all of them of a highly inferen- tial character. 1/4t1nputed" ignorance, not actual error, is the object of our critic's censures. We are apparently charged with supposing the Hauran to be in the Lebanon, an impression. of which we were entirely guiltless, and of supposing the Balkan to mark a division of races, and not merely a rough northern boundary for the Hellenized populations, of which we were also innocent. Also some false belief or other is imputed to us, on the strength of an expression used some months ago, the context of which our contemporary does not supply, and which we have entirely forgotten. We do not find a single proved inaccu- racy in the article, except perhaps, the use of the term hardy- highlanders ' of all the fighting Candiotes, when it applies only to some, though probably the majority, of the insurrectionary popu- lation. The article is evidently written out of the pedantry of minute local knowledge of Turkey,—a knowledge no doubt far more special, bat not necessarily leading to sounder political jadg- meat, than our own,--and out of a pro-Turkish animus irritated against us for our opposite bias. The writer might do better for his cause than invent blunders for others, in order afterwards with great parade to take credit for correcting them.
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