NEWS OF THE WEEK
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THE leading Anglo-Indians have discussed our warning of last week very temperately, and with an obvious wish to ascertain the truth. As might have been expected, the weight -of authority is slightly against us. Lord Lansdowne, Lord Roberts, Sir George Chesney, and Sir Alfred Lyall, all con- sider we are much too pessimist, while Sir Richard Temple, -Colonel Malleson, and the exceptionally well-informed writer who signs " X " in our correspondence, take with ourselves the apprehensive view. All who are opposed to us, we believe, -accept Sir Alfred Lyall as their mouthpiece, and they could not have a better one; for Sir Alfred, besides having governed the North-West—that is, the division of India which would rise if Behar rose—has a deep insight into general Asiatic =thought. We do not see, however, that in this instance he gives us anything except his own belief that the circulation of the chapattis was not connected with the Mutiny of 1857, and some evidence that similar messages are often sent abroad from some unknown religious motive. Pre- -CiSely ; and it is for that reason that the message is sent, when a rising is at hand. The only thing in Sir Alfred Lyall's letter (Times, 8th inst.), which surprises us, is his suggestion that because Mussulmans and Hindoos are -quarrelling they will not join against the Europeans. They have been quarrelling for seven hundred years, and in 1857 sprung in perfect accord at our throats. The only Asiatics Whom Mussnlmans do not put up with are the Parsees, ,probably for some traditional reason.
