¹½ MILLIONS.

The crowds which have bathed today, which is Amavas, the most sacred of all the Kumbh festivals, are officially estimated to number four and a half millions—about a million more than was anticipated.

The scenes at the Sangam at dawn, when the pilgrims hailed the sun with cries of: Ganga Mai Ki Jai, will be memorable as making this one of the greatest pilgrimages in the history of the world.

Nearly 1,000 women and children reported themselves at Seva Samiti camps as “lost”. Of this army of strays about 50 per cent have been restored to their relatives. The remainder are taking up their abode in camps as “unclaimed”.

## RELIGIOUS FERVOUR.

First aid was administered to over 100 pligrims, mostly women, as the result of injuries that were sustained in the terrific rush, and 22 persons were saved from drowning when a boat capsized near the sangam. From dawn till dusk pilgrims ignored all obstacles and swarmed to the sangam. Husbands, clutching the wives, whole families strung together with a turban, youths bearing their old and decrepit relatives on their shoulders, all packed together in a seemingly inseparable mass, moved onward to the Hindus’ Holy of Holies, allowing nothing to stand in the way of their religious fervour.

In the case of the bigger machines, the bombers, which require to be weight-carriers and still to have high flying-speed and a rapid climb, similar improvement is taking place. One bombing squadron is being supplied with machines of a new type not much less effective than the "Bulldogs" themselves, as it has, according to its official tests, a speed of 177½ miles an hour at five thousand feet, of 172 miles at ten thousand, of 163 at fifteen thousand, and of 139 miles at twenty thousand feet, and it can reach a height of fifteen thousand feet in sixteen minutes. These, it may be assumed, are the performances that the "Interceptor" has been designed to beat: and as in the case of the naval gun and the armourplate, we may expect bomber and interceptor to go on struggling for supremacy for years to come.

That is where the experience the great air-aces becomes valuable. It may not be necessary that should continue to take part in officially, at the public expense; the highly-trained speed pilot the experimental 'plane are necessary if development is to go on and it may be taken for granted that the Air Ministry fully intends to retain both of them for its own purposes.