6 FEBRUARY 1926, Page 17

[To the Editor of the SPEcra'roa.] Sra—Your article on the

late Mr. Doughty quotes a few lines from Arabia Deserts in which the author of that book reports that the modern Arabs say of the Christians that " the lights quenched in their religious assemblies, there is a cursed meddling among them in a strange and horrible manner." It may be interesting to note that this is precisely One of the chirps against the Christians which Minucius, writing just 1,700 years before Doughty, puts into the mouth of the pagan Speaker in his dialogue' (Oetavius, c. 9: ed. Baekreus). A remarkable instance, surely, of the vitality of a slander.-...I am, Sir, &c., A. A. B.