A very curious statement reaches the Times from Delhi. It
is said that the Viceroy's salute, formerly one of twenty-one guns, has been raised to thirty-one guns. The great chiefs, therefore, who have been honoured with twenty-one guns as a special grace declare that they have not been honoured at all, their rank in the Empire, as measured by the Viceroy's, being actually lower than it was before. Their permanent contention has always been that although not the equals of the Empress, they are the equals of her Viceroy, even outside their immediate terri- tories, and his superiors within them,—the latter a claim which has never, so far as we can recall, been conceded, though it has been rather evaded than denied. The great Princes have there- fore gone home very grumpily. The incident, though not very important, for a dispute of the kind has raged for years, is note- worthy, as showing the difficulty of conciliating the Princes through the application to them of European etiquettes. They are given precedence among their Order, but they wanted pre- cedence in the Empire,—claim, in fact, not to be Dukes, but Royal Dukes.
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