7 JUNE 1902, Page 14

COLONEL CONDER AND DEAN STANLEY.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SFECTATOR."1 SIR,--Perhaps you will not think it inconsistent with your closure of the correspondence on Hebron to let me disclaim an undeserved honour which Colonel Conder has conferred on me in his last letter. He says :—" I do not know where Canon MacColl heard the words Halkath-el-Butin ; but the phrase is impossible, as the first word is Hebrew and the rest is Arabic." But the sentence in my letter which Colonel Conder dismisses so contemptuously is not mine at all. I gave it, with full references and within inverted commas, from Dean Stanley. I leave your readers to decide between Dean Stanley and Colonel Conder as authorities on the topography of Palestine and the construction of the Hebrew language.—