. The Indian mail has brought further reports of the
evidence given before Lord Hunter's Committee which is inquiring into the Punjab riots. The evidence shows how extremely grave the riots were, and how much reason there was for believing that they were on the point of developing into a general mutiny. There was widespread excitement, and threats against Europeans were being uttered which recall the days preceding the Great Mutiny of 1857. Though wo deplore the killing of so many Indians at Amritsar, and can hardly believe that killing on such a largo scale would have been thought necessary by a cool-headed officer, it is nevertheless quite likely that General Dyer's strong action was " the whiff of grapeshot "—though it was indeed something terribly more than that—which pre- vented another Mutiny and saved thousands of lives in the long run.
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