The Press. — London, England, 1858-04-03 00:00:00

320 The casualties amount to one officer slightly, three privates slightly, and two severely, wounded. The steadiness of the troopi, and the promptitude with which my orders were carried out by my officers, gives me every assurance that the enemy's attack, if it had been as formidable as their forces were numerous, would have been as signally defeated. On the 17th of January the attack was again re newed, but repulsed by the terrible fire of our ar tillery : On the left front and left, the enemy advanced skit.. mishers, and threatened during the greater part of the day, suffering severely whenever they ventured within range. After dark they assembled in great strength in front of my left advanced village outpost, commanded by Major Gordon, 75th Regiment, and attacked it v'ith a large body of infantry, who were allowed to approach within eighty yards of the post, when they were received with discharges of grape from three guns, and a heavy fire from the Rifles of the post, which inflicted very severe loss, and drove them off immediately. Some shells from an 8-inch mortar expedited their retreat. The Enfield Rifles, and Captain Maude's guns, in Alumbagh, had several opportunities of inflicting severe loss on the enemy, which were promptly taken advantage of. A large body of cavalry showed on my left rear, and were safely left to the vigilance of Captain Olpherts, who watched and kept them in check with his four horse-battery guns, sup ported by a detachment of the military train, under Cap tain Clarke. The casualties of my force during the day amounted to 1 bombardier killed, 7 European infantry wounded, and 1 gunner wounded by a fall from his gun. Passing by some despatches relating to the opera tions of the Malwa Field Force, and which are dated as long ago as last November, we come to hil, BRIGADIER HOPE'S ATTACK ON THE REBELS Al SHUMSHAHAD, for which, in a special despatch, the President of the Council of India in Council thanks the Brigadier : BRIGADIER A. HOPZ, LIEI 93RD mon- 'ANDERS, COMMANDING 3RD BRIGADE OF INFANTRY, TO THE CHIEF OF THE STAFF. Camp near Futtehghnr, Jan. 20, 18.59. Sir,—l have the honour to report that, in accordance with the commander in-chiel's orders, communicated by you, I marched from this camp (leaving the tenth standing) on the 26th instant, at 11 p.m., with the troops noted (2 squadrons of 9th Lancers, 200 Hodson's Horse, 1 troop Bengal Horse Artillery, field battery Bengal Artillery, 4 guns, 42nd Royal Highlanders, 33rd Regiment, 4th Punjaub Rifles), and hailing for three boars short of the village of Kooshinabad, proceeded at daylight on the 27th towards Shumsbabad. A thick fog compelled us to move cautiously, and it was nine o'clock before the column closed up under cover of the village of Shumahabad. The rebels, in considerable force, had taken post about three•gnarters of a mile beyond that place. They occupied a commanding knoll on the edge of the plateau over• looking the plain, which stretches towards the river some sit miles distant. On the knoll was a brick building, the shrine of a Muasulman saint, and the place was surrounded by the remains of an old intrenchment, upon which they had raised a sandbag battery. Their front was defended by a mine (impassable for cavalry or guns) which runs at right angles across the road to Mhow, along which we moved, and to the right of which their position was. As the head of our column emerged from the village the fog cleared off, and some cavalry outposts of the enemy having been driven in, we moved over some broken ground towards their camp, now distinctly risible. They imme diately opened upon us a well•d rested fire of round shot, by which Lieutenant M'Dowell, of Hodson's Horse, a most active officer, was mortally wounded. Captain Remmington then led his troop of Horse Artillery at a gallop across the bridge where the road crosses the ravine, and, supported by Captain Hodson's Irregular Horse, wheeled to the right and opened fire on the flank of the enemy's camp. The rebel sowers made a daring attempt to outflank and cot off these guns, but were very boldly met by Captain Hodson, afterwards supported by the 9th Lancers under Captain Steel ; and in the charge which ensued were driven over the steep bank into the plain below. Meanwhile Captain Blunt brought his guns into action in an excellent position on the right bank of the ravine, arid the line of infantry was formed on the right, consist. ing of the 4th Punjaub Rifles, under Captain Wyld ; the 42nd Royal Highlanders, under Lieutenant-Colonel Cameron, being on the ext•eme right ; the 51rd Regiment, under Major English. being in second line. The enemy were unable to withstand the admirable fire of our guns, and I ordered the infantry, who had been screened in n hollow of the ground, to advance ; end soon after, seeing the camp nearly abandoned, the 4th Punjaub Rifles were directed to secure it, which they did in a very spirited manner, shooting down many of the retreating enemy. - - - - - - - A gallant charge of the 42nd, and a rush of cavalry and horsa artillery at the retreating masses, com pleted their defeat. Brigadier Hope believes the enemy's force to have consisted of two regiments from Bareilly, the Pathans of Mhow, Shumshabad, Kaimgunge, dcc., and a good many of the armed rabble collected by the hope of plunder. He esti• mates their loss at 300 men, including two or three of their chiefs. Our loss consists of 1 European officer, 5 rank and fi!e, and 3 horses, killed ; 2 Euro pean officers, 15 rank and file, and 6 horses, severely wounded ; 3 European officers, 19 rank and file, and 2 horses, slightly wounded ; 8 rank and Ale missing. THE PRESS, APRIL 3, 1858. Captain C. P. Johnson, in his accompanying re port, says : I beg respectfully to call your attention to the dispropor tionate number of officers who were wounded, as a proof of the noble manner in which they led their men ; to the number of the enemy's slain, as a proof that the men were not wanting in the support of their officers. In fact, the conduct of the men during the long day's work was ad mirable. They had been ten successive hours in the saddle before coming into action, and nineteen before the pursuit was abandoned, but were always ready. Besides the documents mentioned above, the Gorernor•General of India directs the publication of a report received by Sir James Outram from Mbjor M'lntyre, in which that officer gives an account of the occupation and defence of Alumbagh from the 25th of September, when he was placed in command of that post by the late General Havelock, until the arrival of Sir Colin Campbell's force. Sir James Outram says : During the earlier portion of Major M'lntyre's occupa tion of Alumbagh, whilst cut off from communication with Cawnpore, uncertain of the fate of the rest of the force from the moment when he lost sight of it in the suburbs of Luck now, and surrounded by a numerous enemy, his command was one of grave and anxious responsibility; and the firm and able manner in which he used his small resources to repulse the attacks of the enemy, to strengthen his de fences, and overcome the difficulties of his situation, and the cheerful conduct of the troops under laborious duties, merit my cordial acknowledgments, and will, I feel sure, meet with his Excellency's approbation. The major•general also forwards Brigadier Eyre's report of the operations of the Oude fiela force from the 21st of September to the 24th of November. The next Indian telegram will not be due before the 11th of April. It will bring one day's later news than that just received. On the 17th of April most important news of the bombardment of Lucknow will most probably be received. This news will be from Bombay up to the 24th inst. CHINA. The intelligence from China is satisfactory. The blockade was raised on the 10th of February, and trade restored upon its old footing, the duties being levied by the Chinese authorities. "In an hour," writes a correspondent, " as though by en chantment, Canton seemed to be in full swing of The site of the new British Factory, or rather settlement, has been fixed upon. The old site is to be abandoned, for many reasons, but chiefly because other European nations have claims upot it. The new site extends from the Five Genii Gate, below the Dutch Folly, up to the old Consoo-house. The ground now taken is about four times the extent formerly occupied, and it extends from the river back to the city wall. W►th respect to a future policy, the Russian and American Envoys, Mr. Reed and Count Puniatin, have agreed with Baron Gros and Lord Elgin to despatch an ultimatum to Pekin, inviting the Em• Perot to send to Shanghai a Minister of high rank, properly accredited, to treat for a new treaty upon the basis of free transit throughout China under proper protection from Chinese authority, perma. nent diplomatic relat►ons at Pekin, unrestricted commerce, and indemnity for losses and expenses incurred. The English and French notes left Hong Kong for Shanghai on the 14th, and the Russian and American notes were to follow immediately. Lord Elgin and Baron Gros were to start with the squadron for the north in the first week in March, whither Mr. Reed and Count Puniatin would also rendezvous. The Inflexible, with Yeh on board, had gone down to Hong Kong, and was preparing to proceed with that mandarin to Calcutta. An interesting and descriptive letter dated Canton Feb. 15, end from the Times correspondent, has been published this week. The writer devotes him self to a careful survey of the reticulated streets of Canton. Hare and there he reaches some spot of historical interest—the carpenter's shop over that small inclosure known as the Potters' Field—the execution ground of Canton The upper part of that carpenter's shop is the place where nearly all the European residents have, at the price of a dollar each, witnessed the wholesale massacres of which Europe has heard with a hesitating scepticism. It was within this yard that that monster Yeh has within two years destroyed the life of 70,000 fellow beings. These crosses are the instruments to which those •ictims were tied who were condemned to the special torture of being sliced to death. Upon one of these the wife of a rebel general was stretched, and by Yeh's order her flesh was cut from her body. After the battle at Whatnpoa the rebel leader escaped, but his wife fell into the hands of Yeh— that was how he treated his prisoner. Her breasts were first cut off, then her forehead was slashed and the skin torn down over the face, then the fleshy parts of the body were sliced away. There are Englishmen yet alive who saw this done, but at what period of the butchery sensation ceased and death came to this poor innocent woman none can tell. The fragment of rope which now hangs to one of the crosses was used to bind a woman who was cut up for murdering her husband. The sickening d e t a il s of the massacres perpetrated on this spot have been related to ins by those who have seen them, and who take shame to them selves while they confess that after witnessing one execu tion by cutting on the cross the rapidity and dexterity with which the mere beheading was done deprived the execution of a hundred men of half its horror. The criminals were brought down in gangs, if they could walk, or brought down in chairs and shot out into the yard. The executi oners then arranged them in rows, giving them a blow behind which forced out the head and neck and laid them conve nient for the blow. Then came the warrant of death. It is a banner. As soon as it waved in sight, without verbal order given, the work began. There was a rapid succes sion of dull crunching sounds—cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep. No second blow w.is ever dealt, for the dexterous munslayers are educated to their work. Until they can with their heavy swords slice a great bulbous vegetable as thin as we slice a cucumber they are not eligible for their office. Three seconds a bead suffice. In one minute five execu tioners clear off 100 lives. It, takes rather longer for the assistants to cram the bodies into rough coffins, especially as you might see them cramming two into one shell, that they might embezzle the spare wooden box. The heads were carried off in boxes; the saturated earth was of value as manure. But the most horrible sight in Canton was the public prisons. A Chinese gaol is a group of small yards, each surrounded by a series of dens, in which the prisoners are confined. Lord Elgin, with a party, was examining one of these gaols : Same one thought he heard a low Moan in one of them, and advanced to the bare to listen. He recoiled as if a blast from a furnace had rushed out upon him. Never were human senses assailed by a more horrible stream of pestilence. The gaolers were ordered to open that place, and refusing, as a Chinaman always at first refuses, were given over to the rough handling of the euldiers, who were told to make them. No sooner were hands laid upon the gaolers than the stifled moan became a wail, and the sail became a concourse of law weakly-muttered groans. So soon as the double doors could be opened, several of us went into the place. The thick stench could only be en dured for a moment, but the spectacle was not one to look long at. A corpse lay at the bottom of the den—the breasts, the only fleshy parts, gnawed and eaten away by rats. Around it and upon it was a festering mass of hu manity, still alive. The Mandarin gaoler, who seemed to wonder what all the excitement was about, was compelled to have the poor creatures drawn forth, and no man who saw that sight will ever forget it. They were skeletons, not men. You could only believe that there was blood in their bodies by seeing it clotted upon their undressed wounds. As they were borne out one after the other, and laid upon the pavement of the yard, each seemed more horrinle than the last. They were too far gone to shriek, although the agony must have been great, the heavy irons pressing upon their raw, lank shins as the gaolers lugged them not too tenderly along. They had heel' beaten into this state, perhaps long ago, by the heavy bamboo, and had been thrown into this den to rot. Their crime W6B that they had attempted to escape. Hideous and loathsome, how ever, as was the sight of their foul wounds, their filthy rags, and their emaciated bodies, it was not so distres-ieg as the indescribable expression of their eyes ; the horror of that look of fierce agony fixed us like a fascination. As the dislocated wretches writhed upon the ground tears rolled down the cheeks of the soldiers of the escort, who stood in rank near them. A gigantic French sergeant, who had the little Mandarin in custody, gesticulated with his bayonet so fiercely that we were afraid he would kill him. We did not then know that the single word which the poor creatures were trying to utter was " hunger," or that that dreadful starting of the eyeball was the look of famine. Some of them had been witbort food fur four days. It was in one of these dreadful dens that six Euro peans—two Frenchmen and four Englishmen— found their death since the *oombararnent of Canton in November, '5O : The European victims were kept here for several months, herding with the Chinese, eating of that same black mess of rice which looks and smells like a bucket of grains cast forth from a brewery. When their time came — probably the time necessary for a reply from Pekin—the gaoler held their heads back while poison was poured down their throats. The prisoners recollected two who threw up the poison, and they were strangled. We asked how they knew it was poison. There was no doubt on this score. Tlt is a curious circumstance, illustrative of the prostrate state of terror that exists here, that the gaoler's fowls scratch about untouched among all the famishing men within the Canton prisons, and feed upon the vermin. It was remarked that the fowls fed upon the vomit of these two Europeans, and died. "It is, I suppose," adds the writer, " contrary to our principles and our policy, and the custom of civilized nations, when a city has been taken by assault to punish these acts ; but we stretched a point. We carried away the principal gaoler and the secre tary—two terrible ruffians, the head and the hand of this iniquity ; and we also carried away the pri soners who had given us trustworthy information, but we only took them as witnesses, and lodged them in our guardhouse." OrEstArtoNs with a view to making a second attempt to lay the Atlantic Telegraph have just been commenced, by stowing the cable a second t►me on board her Majesty's ship Agamemnon. A new form of break, invented by a Mr. Appold, is to be used, and there are various other improvements of detail. "UMW was cut up tails of the ated to me ie to them- one execu- terity with execution inals were ught down .ecutioners ow behind em conve- death. It tout verbal lid succes- eep, cheep. minelayers with their thin as we ;heir office. five execu- ger for the especially shell, that The heads as of value the public all yards, which the h a party, to of them, ed as if a m. Never stream of that place, fuses, were , who were d upon the td the wail roans. So ?eral of us only be en- one to look ) den—the to away by ass of hu- seemed to Impelled to in who saw s, not men. heir bodies ponds. As d upon the rinle than though the pressing I them not ) this state, had been that they some, how their filthy di•ttres-ing the horror union. As ound tears escort, who sergeant, Mated with would kill word which anger," or the look of )d for tour six E uro- h men— d Canton for several that same a bucket of me came-- Pekin—the lIIIIIMII