wear a decidedly unpleasant look and this year, which has in other parts of the Empire worn so fair an aspect, has in our greatest dependency displayed little but trouble and gloom. This week's news of the disturbance on the North-West frontier adds a serious. political crisis to the famine, plague, and earthquake which have already befallen India, A fanatical outbreak among the Afridis, the tribe which inhabits the valleys on either side of the Khyber Pass, and their sudden treacherous attacks upon the posts held by their kinsman who were armed and controlled by the Indian Government, call for speedy punishment which no doubt ill be forthcoming. The military authorjes have an army of 40,000 available at Peshawur, The column of Sir Bindon Blood is at hatid, having successfully put down a similar rising, and as the Ameer has been significantly admonished that we shall stand no intrigues, it is confidently expected at home that the difficulty will be faced and overcome before it assumes more than ordinary proportions. Tt will not be underrated but neither will it be allowed create a panic. The result will be that the custody of the Khyber Pass will be taken out of the hands of an unreliable frontier tribe, which has furnished the Khyber Rifles, a force not: disciplined by Br chiefs subsidised by us. As for any real connection between the - different sections of Mshommedans -in Constantinople, Kabul and India, any fears on that account may be dismissed as idle in the extreme. The Sultan's claim to be "Commander of the Faithful" over the Eastern world is a mere shadowy one and by none would be contested more fiercely than the Moslems of India.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.