The Saturday Review of last week came out in quite
a new. character. We have known it angry, we have known it bitter,: and we have known it sardonic, but we never before saw it apoplectic with dignity. We said it "held a brief for the Council of India," and it says we mean that it is not independent, does not express its own views, but expresses those supplied to it on behalf of the Council of India. Nonsense. We do not profess to write legal English, but colloquial English, and described the Saturday Review as holding a brief for the officials, just as we should describe ourselves as holding a brief for the people of Bengar.. That it has official information is clear, though the information may not come from the Council as a body; but writers may honestly agree with officials, just as they may honestly disagree with them ; and the Saturday Review, as a rule, honestly does both, in the same number. The lofty lecture -which follows about the duty of journalists to sit as judges, and not as advocates, has given us a new and most interesting experience. We can now understand how a clergyman feels when forced by circumstances to sit under one of his own old sermons.
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