Mr Bennett's article was seemingly framed on the specious pretext of, under a discussion of the principles of international law, questions of belligerency, Geneva Convention rules, and so forth, to base thereon a claim for the treatment of dervishes as combatants entitled to all the amenities of civilised warfare. Several pages of his composition are given up to treating upon that matter. For instance, he says--"Moreover, it is worth remembering that the dervishes were not 'savages' in the sense in which the word is applied to the followers of a Lobengula or a Samory. On the contrary, they satisfied all the requirements for recognition as an armed force." Now, that is an aspersion upon Lobengula and Samory in particular. For unredeemed devilishness, the dervishes have had no equals. The fact is, that the Mahdists made it a constant practice to ruthlessly slaughter all prisoners in battle, wounded or unwounded; to enslave, torture, or murder their enemies, active or passive; to loot and to burn; to slay children and debauch women. To set up a pretext that such monsters are entitled to the grace and consideration of the most humane laws, is to beggar commonsense and yap intolerable humbug. Yet British self-respect was such, Mr Bennett to the contrary notwithstanding, that the dervishes were treated as men, and not as wild beasts. Started upon his false pursuit, Mr Bennett proceeds from error to error, abounding in reckless misstatements, atrocious imputations, and scattering charges void of truth. As briefly as possible, I will deal with his accusations. One of his first deliverances is as follows:--"It is, of course, an open secret that in all our Soudan battles the enemy's wounded have been killed. The practice has, ever since the days of Tel-el-Kebir, become traditional in Soudanese warfare. After the battle of Atbara, it was announced that 3000 dervishes had been killed. There was practically no mention of the wounded.... How, then, was it that no wounded were accounted for at the Atbara?" Again he writes:--"But I cannot help thinking that if the killing of the wounded had been sternly repressed at Tel-el-Kebir and during the earlier Soudan campaigns, our dervish enemies would have learned to expect civilised treatment," etc. Gaining courage, probably from his own audacity, Mr Bennett had the hardihood to virtually declare that the cruelties permitted by British officers made the dervishes what they were.