The Great Boot Question.

Bruce Herald, Volume IX, Issue 812, 16 June 1876, Page 6

The Great Boot Question.

* . The great boot question is again agitating the minds of politicians. The Government of India haa dared to instruct Colonel Duncan, our resident atMandalay, to insist upon keeping his Wellingtons on at his next visit to the golden foot, and an awe-struck world holds its breath until it learns the result; What his Burmese Majesty will do when the news reaches him nobody is able to guess. He may strike off the gallant Colonel's head —he may content himself with depriving him of his "poor feet," or he may simply refuse to see him except, as before, in hia stockings. In any case it may be expected that his powerful protection will be withdrawn from us, and it is well known that we hold India only by his permission. Timid people, however, need not begin packing their portmanteaus to go home just yet. There is still some hope that the . Foreign Office may be brought to see the danger, and recall its rash instructions before anything very dreadful happens. Its resolutions, we know, are not, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, unchangeable, and its previous dealings with the court of Mandalay have shown so much diplomatic geniua that we feel sure it will find a way out of the diffiulty into whioji a momentary lapse from its usual submissive attitude has brought it. — » Friend of India.'