Facts seem to make little impression on the community. The
public are very indignant at a suspicion that arms, and especially powder, have been sold to Zulus, and Liberals are violently accused of having granted self- government to the Cape Colonists, and thereby led to an unlimited sale of fire-arms to Caffres. The deduction is that our defeat in Zululand was due to the democratic weakness of Mr. Gladstone's Government, which we verily believe, in some men's imagination, caused the late severe winter. All this while every reporter on the spot—General, private soldier, or corre- spondent— tells the same story,—that the Zulus do nothing with their own guns, except throw them away ; that their formation is intended only for close fighting, and that they trust entirely to the shortened spear, the assegai. The victims of Isandlana and Intombi were stabbed, not shot, and it is only against Kambula Kop that Zulus are reported to have used rifles—captured at Isand- lane., not bought—with anything like effect. The Tories should produce evidence that the assegais are made at Birmingham,— principally by Mr. Bright.
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