[To TUB EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Mr. Rudyard Kipling would
be the, first to admit that his merriest quip must yield in quaintness to the citation of himself (in the Spectator of September 9th) by Mr. Claud Russell as a counter-authority on the history of Indian famines to Sir Charles Elliott and Mr. W. B. Oldham. We are reminded of Mr. Punch's estimate of the character of Napoleon as evidenced by his conduct at Astley's. As I happen to be the survivor of two men who in February, 1878, did penance for the sin of one, videlicet myself, in the market-place of Gooty, in respect of the Burmese rice stored in 1876 in the Munro Choultry in that town, my claim to be the authority par excellence on that sore subject will hardly be contested. Let me, therefore, in your columns support my quondam brother-officers emphatically and without reserve. A suggestion of mine for the disposal of that importation from the Land of the White Elephant did not commend itself to the late Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, who at that time was, fato Bomae, our Proconsul. Wherefore, as his manner was, he bethought him of retribu- tion ; and it was on this wise. He ordered me and one of my officers, the late Captain Hamilton of "Probyn's Horse," to sit for two hours at least every day in the bazaar of Gooty personally selling the rice in two-pound (one-seer) lots. He recorded his august opinion that this would "do good " by affecting the price of food-stuffs in general. All who served under him, will corroborate me when I say that a freak like that was quite in his way. A year or two earlier I had submitted a forecast of the probable numbers of people who would be on relief on a certain date in the adjacent tract,
Adoni. I felt compelled to adhere to it. Mr. Oldham was peremptorily ordered to travel to my camp without an hour's delay, and to rouse me from my midnight slumbers with the news that he came to inipersede me. His estimate agreed in substance with mine, and he too declined to reduce it. He was not in his turn bundled out with contumely, because there was no officer within reach who could have been used in the way of a stick to beat him with. The event proved that our virtually identical estimates were much too low. Speaking with the historic " Carnatic lisp " that added point to his acute deliverances, the late Sir Richard Temple enlivened a hot and dusty ride on one morning of those far-off days by the following character-sketch : " Your Duke ith macthimuth in minimith et minimuth in macthimith,—the greatetht living ecthponent of the art of thwallowing camel-th and th-training
at gnat-th."—I am, Sir, &c., W. H. GLENNY,
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