A great fuss is being made in the papers over
an incident which we believe to be quite trivial. Mr. Justice Norris, of the Calcutta High Court, in the course of a trial, and on good Hindoo advice, ordered an idol to be brought into the verandah of the Court, that the Judges might see it. The native Editor of the Bengalee did not approve this, and not writing his own language, used exaggerated phrases, probably taken from some reminiscence of his reading in college, about Scroggs and Jeffries. The Judge, not having quite the self-control of his colleagues at home, sentenced him to two months' imprisonment for contempt of Court. That irritated the natives, who held a meeting, said to have been attended by 10,000 persOne, who declared that they had lost confidence in the Government, whereas. they had only lost confidence in Mr. Justice Norris. The speakers, with their usual cleverness, instead of attacking the Judge for his severity, attacked him for an insult to their religion. He had offered none, and if he had, the Mussulmans who also attended the meeting would only have chuckled, and wished for the old days when they could occasionally make remarks on an idol with a hammer. The incident has been eagerly seized*upon in England as proof that Lord Ripon is " letting India slip out of his hand, and waking-up race hatreds." That is pure nonsense. Lord Ripon has, as we believe without intention, greatly annoyed Europeans by a premature attack on their right to be tried only- by their countrymen ; but he has not annoyed the natives, not one in a million of whom has heard of Mr. Ilbert's Bill. The end- less gossip of the Presidency towns is not native opinion, nor are the few cultivated natives of the coast-fringe the people of India. The former, too, though they sometimes talk disaffec- tion, are much too clever to be disaffected. They know quite- well what a Sikh Sirdar would do to them, and that the alterna tive of a Viceroy is a Sikh Sirdar.
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