“CAMOUFLAGED” ROADS

To The Editor Of The Statesman SIR, – As a humble, and, possibly, very ignorant, member of the motorcycling fraternity, ask a question of those who have the roads of Calcutta in their care? Why is it that so much time, labour, and, I feel sure, so much money, is just at present being spent in tarring roads? The effect is to camouflage these roads into a semblance of respectability which they do not possess. I have in mind a certain piece of road, which from its situation certainly ought to be kept in good repair, but which at present is a perfect nightmare. I refer to the stretch of road leading from the Dufferin statue to the Racecourse. It is all lumps and hollows, and about sixty yards from the said monument are two craters, worthy of the shell-swept plains of France. And so I ask, in all humility, why not spend a little time and trouble in improving the surfaces of the roads before loosing upon them the fiends of the tarbrush, whose handiwork, though scarcely charitable, yet “covereth a multitude of sins?”

DE PROFUNDIS.
Calcutta.

LADY BURGHCLERE’S PRISONERS’FUND

To The Editor Of The Statesman SIR, – I have received a cable message from Lady Burghclere saying that no further subscriptions are required. The amounts subscribed in November have already been cabled to Lady Burghclere and it is possible that in these circumstances there will be a balance remaining in her hands. I propose to ask Lady Burghclere to give any such balance to any fund which she may select, preferably some fund for the alleviation of distress among returned prisoners. I am requested Lady Burghclere to offer her most sincere and heartfelt thanks to all those who have supported her fund so generously and consistently, to subscribers and those who have promoted entertainments for the benefit of the Fund, to newspaper proprietors for the free use of their columns and especially to The Statesman for the generous gift of a full page advertisement, and to printers who have most kindly printed appeals free of cost. Subscribers to this Fund in India have undoubtedly helped to save thousands of our men from death.

JOHN LANGFORD JAMES.
19, Loudon Street, Calcutta.

CANNIBALISM AMONG LEOPARDS

To The Editors Of The Statesman SIR, – A few mornings ago, I went out with a friend to look for a leopard he had wounded the night before. He was sure he had hit it rather far back; as a matter of fact, the bullet must have gone through its stomach. We found it, after following the trail for about 100 yards. It proved to be a two-thirds grown cub, and the bulk of it had been eaten presumably by its mother as her tracks were all about it. Only the forequarters and hind legs and tail were left. Sanderson, in his “thirteen years among the wild beasts of India,” quotes two cases of cannibalism among tigers, but I have never heard of a leopard doing it, and should be glad to hear if any of your readers have had similar experiences.

CYRIL GORE.
Langharjan Tea Estate, Assam