La Plus Ca la Meme Chose

Roger Kimball quotes from his "tattered but serviceable" copy of the 1910 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica. Here's part of the entry about the Afghan people:

The Afghans, inured to bloodshed from childhood, are familiar with death, and audacious in attack, but easily discouraged by failure; excessively turbulent and unsubmissive to law or discipline; apparently frank and affable in manner, especially when they hope to gain some object, but capable of the grossest brutality when that hope ceases. They are unscrupulous in perjury, treacherous, vain and insatiable, passionate in vindictiveness, which they will satisfy at the cost of their own lives and in the most cruel manner.

Kimball then asks (rhetorically, one presumes): "Does any of that need to be emended?"