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and stands half-indignant, half-incredulous, when it is exhibited as a laughing-stock to the civilized peoples of the world, could surely afford no more convincing proof of its mental collapse.
When we charge the Boers with the very illegalities and outrages of which we ourselves are guilty, Europe flings in our face the not unnatural taunt of 'hypocrisy,' and the virtuous scorn which we exhibit in contemning the taunt affords convincing proof to our critics. For all that, 'hypocrisy' fails to hit the mark; 'hypocrisy' implies judgment and calculation, and these are just the qualities which are eminently lacking; 'hypocrisy' ignores the true humour of the psychology of Jingoism. An illustration will serve to make clear my meaning. We are quite genuine in the indignation we display against the Boers for shooting our soldiers with 'explosive' bullets; it is, we quite believe, a barbarous practice such as we ourselves would not adopt. Now, even in the midst of this indignation we are aware that the so-called 'explosive' bullets are not explosive, but expansive, and that there is no evidence at all of any use of explosive bullets. Somewhere in the background of our mind we retain an uneasy recollection that the expansive