of those who claim to lead them. They
can distinguish the truths of the Gospel,
and the practical dictates of Reason, from
the controversial theories of 'contentious
conscientiousness.' "

ORIENTAL LIFE IN LITTLE.

THOSE who remember the dark poking rooms
at the India House in Leadenhall-street, and
the curious things which rendered those rooms
interesting, will be glad to learn that our old
friend the Tiger is still in preservation, although
much dimmed by the dust of time. We have
still the incentive to meditate on that glittering
savage, Tippoo Sultan, to whom the tiger
belonged; and we may, if we like, ask whether
a later savage, Nana Sahib, would have felt an
equal pleasure in listening to the mimic shrieks
of a wooden or papier-maché Englishman (or
woman, or child). But this tiger is only one
thing among a thousand; although certainly a
very special thing of its kind.

During the couple of centuries marked by
the career of the East India Company, and
especially during the second of the two
centuries, many odds and ends collected in the East
were transmitted to London, and there placed
in spare rooms in the old East India House—
now replaced by a cluster of commercial chambers.
When there was enough of these
miscellaneous objects to merit the dignified name of
a Museum, an order from a director of the
company would admit a visitor to see it; but
at a later date a more liberal plan was adopted,
by admitting the public generally for three
hours on Saturdays. You entered the central
vestibule; you wound about two or three
passages, and ascended forty stairs; and then
you found six or eight rooms, very scantily
supplied with window-light. In these rooms the
curiosities were stowed, some in very dark
corners, and some on shelves too high up to
be seen; but there was wherewithal to whet
one's interest in the doings and the products
of the East. In process of time came the
Mutiny, and its consequent fierce encounters;
then the virtual extinction of the great
company; next desolation of the old East India
House; and the final demolition of the building.
The removal of the Museum being
necessary, an arrangement was made with the
government for the use of Fife House, Whitehall:
and there the Museum was open to
the public for about seven years. Towards
the close of what may be called the Leadenhall
period, the directors had increased the number
of hours in the year when the collection was
open for public inspection, to four hours in the
day on two days in the week; and when the
transference to a new house was completed,
the facility was further increased to six hours a
day on three days in the week. Then came the
building of the new India Office: a sort of twin
brother of the new Foreign Office. In this new
India Office, some, at least, of the contents of
the Museum are now deposited.

And here we will give expression to a
bundle of hopes. We hope that the staircase,
mounting up to infinite altitude, and
about as broad as that of an ordinary
eight-roomed house, is only a temporary one. We
hope that the present exhibited collection
is only to be regarded as an instalment
of that which will be placed open to us one
day, when the stores possessed by the India
Department shall have been made fully available.
We hope that Dr. Forbes Watson, the
indefatigable curator of the Museum, will be
able to supply a few more labels or inscriptions,
in the absence of a catalogue. We hope that
the time for public admission will be something
more than three hours on one day in the week.
And we hope that the formality of giving one's
card to the door-keeper is not to be insisted
on. Many symptoms lead us to believe that
the architect was not originally instructed to
include a Museum in his plan; that the
Museum was an after thought; and that the
restrictive, exclusive system which has been
adopted, is a result of cramping for room, arising
from this want of architectural fitness.*  Be
this as it may, the arrangements will probably
improve as they gradually get into working
order; in the mean time we may congratulate
all concerned on the capital manner in which
the place is lighted; everything can be well
seen.
*Our hopes are likely to be realised in due time.
It is now announced that the Council of India has
authorised the architect to prepare plans for a new
structure; to contain the whole collection belonging to
tho Museum, as well as a geographical department.
The new building is to occupy another side of the
quadrangle.

This Museum illustrates, more completely
than the British or the South Kensington
Museums can do, the habits and customs, the
arts and sciences, the growths and products,
the utilities and luxuries, of Oriental countries.
Take the case of warlike arms. Every
possible scimitar and dagger that could have
been used by Blue Beard and by Timour the
Tartar, by rajahs and nabobs, by shahs and
moguls, by Sikhs and Rajpoots, by Afghans
and Scindians, may here be seen. Also, the
oddest-looking muskets and matchlocks, some
of them decorated with that peculiar kind of
wavy surface known by the name of
damascening. It would be an interesting point for our
Snider and Whitworth folks to ascertaia how
far the two guiding principles of barrel-rifling
and breech-loading have been known to the
ingenious Orientals; and how far the same
Orientals have studied the differences between
steel and other metals as the material for
various kinds of arms.

The fibrous products of India have engaged
a large amount of attention on the part of
Dr. Royle and Dr. Forbes Watson. The
subject is an important one, seeing that the
manufacturers of textile materials, of paper,
of bagging and sacking, of ropes and matting,
are greatly dependent on the supply of such
fibres. The official precincts of Downing-Street