The Sun.
London, England, 1869-01-07 00:00:00

LOA DON, THURSDAY, JANUARY 7, 180.

According to a telegram from Madras, dated upon
the morrow of New Year's Day, Lord MAYO, bad
arrived there that evening, and met with an en-
thusiastic reception. A communication appealing
some little time previously in the Friend of India
(and announced in that journal as having come to it
from a very high Indian authority of no party predi-
lections or prejudices whatever) by a purely acciden-
tal coincidence, falls under our notice almost simul-
taneously with the arrival of this Madras telegram.
With whimsical gravity the friend of the Friend of
India therein informs us that—as he writes—" Lord
MAYO is a sensible-looking, gentlemanly man, and
gives us the impression that he will do well and be a
favourite in India." " A sensible-looking, gentle-
manly man"—and therefore likely to prove a wise and
sagacious ruler for one hundred and eighty million
Asiatics ! Than which, surely, there could hardly
be any more absurd non sequitur. Reading so grave
an announcement so gravely put, one cannot help
recalling to mind that ludicrous incident in "Pelham "
about the broker's man in charge of the spoons who,
dining among the guests arrayed in a white neck-
cloth, and having been warned previously to hold .his
tongue so as not to betray himself, is spoken of co-
vertly to one or two of the other guests, by the hostess,
PELHAM'S mother, as " my son's tutor, such a clever
man, but so shy." Not one jot less ludicrous than
this, in its way, is the serious auguring thus by the
high Indian authority corresponding with the Friend
of India, that Lord MAYO " will do well and be a
favourite" among those he is called upon to govern,
because he is sensiblelooking and gentlemanly." Any
way, it has been the good fortune of India hitherto to
have had among the best of its Governor-Generals
men from whose antecedents it would have been diffi-
cult, sometimes absolutely impossible, to predicate
whether or not their rule would prove at its close a
source of dismay or of satisfaction. Lord MAYO is the
twenty-third in succession of the Governor-Generals
who have been called upon, first by the Company,
afterwards by the Crown, to preside over the destinies
of Hindostan. Twice the Marquis of CORNIVALLIS was
ruler in this way of India, his first pro-consular reign
beginning in 1786, his second in 1805—so that in
that way there will have been (counting Lord MAYO'S
rule as one actually commenced) twenty-four Gover-
nor-Generalship's sine the first and greatest of them
all, that of WARREN ILismos. But, otherwise, as
already remarked—from the first to the last, from
IVARREN lIASTINGS to Lord MAYO, both inclusively—
ere have been twenty-three G overn or-Generals. And
of Lord MAYO'S twenty-two predecessors it is perfectly
well known that there have been several who, like him-
self, have assumed power without the faintest
gleam being afforded by their antecedents as to how
that power might be exercised when it bad fallen into
their bands. Conspicuous among these were both
the Earl of DALHOUSIE and Viscount CANNING. And
therefore, heartened by the run of luck, so to speak,
which has thus fallen to the lot of India —one might