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bullets as they used were taken from us. In face of such evidence we charge the enemy with using explosive bullets, and are righteously indignant at his doing so.

Yet this is not rightly styled hypocrisy; it is mental collapse, accompanied by an absence of that common sense of humour which, in normal minds, aids reason in detecting palpable inconsistencies or absurdities.

Were it worth while, we might adduce an almost infinite variety of instances of this mental confusion exhibiting itself in grotesque reasoning. Had our personal feelings been disengaged, no people would have been quicker than ourselves to recognize the heroic courage of two such nations standing up in bold challenge for their rights against the largest empire of the world. At the opening of the war, however, it was the smallness of the people that particularly roused our indignation at the insolence; it seemed to us that confidence of bearing and audacity of language were rights appertaining only to 'Great Powers.' It might seem reasonable that the success of the Boers, not merely in resistance, but in attack, should tend to reduce our sense of their insolence. Not so, however; we continue to harp upon the smallness of their numbers as a