THE SUPPOSED INDIAN REVIEW.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " Srscraroa."1 Sin,—Nothing is more remarkable to a person with a fairly good memory, who follows more or less the course of contemn porary politics, than the extreme rapidity with which facts and dates are forgotten by ninety-nine people out of a hundred. This facility of oblivion isharmless enough-in the mass of mankind ; but it should surely be guardedagainstbythose who strive to mould the mass. Rntit would seem, on thi3 contrary) that the journalistic memory is the shortest of any. I do not speak of the foul furieux of journalism—whose memory-one mustsuspect at times tobe artificiallyshortened, when; facts are. against their monomania—but-of someof 'the-, soberest and most respectable prints that we have. Thus thS Obteraer
of last Sunday, upbraiding the Government for not bringing the Australian troops to show themselves in St. James's Parka compliment, by the way, which we now learn the gallant Colonists by no means coveted—contrasts "the behaviour of Lord Beaconsfield's Administration to the Indian troops who went to Malta," and whom, it seems, that eminent statesman caused to "participate in the review before the Queen which usually winds up a long spell of service in the field." Could the writer give the date of, and a few particulars about, the review before the Queen to which he refers ? Or is it possible that his memory of an event not yet three years old is so confused that he thinks the Tel-el-Kebir review took place in Lord Beaconsfield's time ? Meantime, some hundreds of readers have taken his words for gospel, and have quoted, at dinnertables and elsewhere, another instance of the meanness and blundering of the Government. And so public opinion is formed —I am, Sir, &c., A. J. B.
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