Mr. Hodgson Pratt, in a very reasonable letter to Tuesday's
Times, suggests the propriety that all the correspondents of English newspapers who were in Egypt or the Soudan, should send either to the International Arbitration and Peace Associa- tion, or to the Press, all they know about the orders or the no- orders issued to the British Army in relation to Olivier Pain, during the Soudan Campaign, in order that the violent French party may be the more completely undeseived as to the existence of M. Rochefort's mare's-nest. Probably, however, the informa- tion which the correspondents of English newspapers can con- tribute on this head will be conspicuous by its absence rather than by its explicitness. The telegram sent from Cairo in answer to the inquiry whether £500 was ever offered for Olivier Pain's head was, we are told, as follows,—" No such reward was ever offered, and no British officer would give 5s. for Olivier Pain's head." We doubt very much whether M. Rochefort be- lieves his own story. No doubt he wishes to believe it, so long at least as be can pelt the moderates of the Republic with insults on the strength of it. But that is a totally different matter.
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