The Press. — London, England, 1858-08-14 00:00:00

770 school, into their own houses, and health, with all its cheerfulness and alacrity, will speedily follow. Having homes which they can respect, they will soon learn to respect, not them only, but them, selves. The habits of submission and obedience, too, which they have learned at school they will transfer to their homes, to be exercised as chil dren, or enforced when they become parents, Thus affection will have its proper guardian, and a healthier condition of the domestic relations altogether will arise. There is yet another point in which, we think, our country gentlemen might promote the social well-being of the labouring classes, and that is, by granting them greater facilities for innocent and healthful amusements. We never pass through a village, and miss the village-green, or the cricket-ground, without a feeling of sadness. The place, in the absence of this, seems to want a spot where the fierce glare of the sun may be broken by a wide-spreading tree, and man may find a refreshing shade. There is a moral beauty in the eyes of every lover of humanity in the scene, with its associa tions, which this (where it is to be found) presents. It is the poor man's patrimony ;it is the common ground of humanity; it is the play ground for the poor man's children : it serves for trap-ball, for bowls, for cricket, for manly humanizing sports of every kind, in which the gentry and the farmers may unite with the peasants, and all, spite of their earthly distinc tions, feel themselves to be of one common blood. How dreary is the life of an English husbandman when this is wanting! " Double, double, toil and trouble," day after day, month after month, year after year, is their lot, uncheered by sympathy, isnenlivened by a smile, unlifted up in their own esteem, when they never thus associate with their superiors. The man has no place to be merry in but the beershop, no excitements but drunken brawls, no pastimes but poaching, nothing to bring him into innocent, cheerful fellowship with his neighbours; and so he grows sullen, envious, discontented. And why is this, but that " restless ownership," in its grasping propensities, has in closed even the village-green, or denied the poor a place for their pastimes? Men are but men, and wise Christian philanthropists will not dis regard even these accessories to the social well being of the humble poor. What a blessed thing it is that men cannot inclose the sky ! But who knows what may not be possible in this age of Wpossibilities! Will not "restless ownership" (as onnswonru called it) long in time to partition out this ? And then we shall have " Freehold Sky Companies" established to send up balloons for the purpose. Parliament, too, will doubtless be appealed to to put forth its omnipotence by pass ing an act to grant them a monopoly, forbidding the winds to offer them molestation in their en terprize, and authorizing that if any planet be caught trespassing it shall be impounded, and that all comets shall be committed for vagrancy. But irony apart, we have an earnest convic tion that in robbing the poor of the advantages and enjoyments we have pointed out, we are, in the end, robbing ourselves. We are robbing ourselves of their strength, attachment, respect, and protection in the hour of need. It is quite right to inclose all land by the cultivation of which the aggregate produce of the country , can be increased, but it is a shortsighted saving to forbid the " productive classes," as they have been termed, the little enjoyment in the way of free dom and recreation which are necessary to their health and contentment. It is wrong, in a word, to make them animals, not men. This nature bade not; this (kin blesses not; this humanity for no long time can endure without sensible deterioration. Give the i4bouring poor good school training ; improve their dwellings ; foster their loft Of home with all the domestic affections ; stitdv to gratify them by providing them with sober and healthful means of amusement, and you will soon see the Queen's wish accomplished in 6 ` the happiness of a loyal and contented people." lik. THE PRESS, AUGUST 14, 1858 AN INDIAN OBLIGATION. Now that the fi;ast Ifidit Company is no more, and that the Stiptcmc Government has assumed its duties *ld reuponsitiditics us well as the snit, stance of fts powur, it haforpes time to examfne the condition in which that 'great possession has. passed iuto the hands of Its new occupants. We have taken our estate a it were by a forced . transfer, by the decroo of a Court from which there is no appeal, with all its imperfections on its head. Now comes the task of searching our registers, of marshalling our incumbrances, of paying off our debts, of clearing, as far as is yet possible, the ground that lies before us for the ultimate utilization and enjoyment of that which we have acquired. Debts of honour are as pressing with honour able men as debts that can be legally enforced, and it may be sometimes almost as dangerous to leave the former undischarged as the latter. To go no further, your friend is usually somewhat unwilling to " become your banker," as it is delicately called, a second time, if you have scrupulously abstained from liquidating your pre vious arrear ; whereas, if you pay him punctually, he will go on lending his cash until seventy times seven. Now we have a creditor in India whom we have not paid, whom we have not promised to pay, and whom it seems very uncertain whether we mean to pay. That creditor is the Nizam, and the debt we owe him is for the security of half, if not the whole, of our Indian empire. Hyderabad, the key of Southern India, is a walled city, situated on a tributary of the river Kistna, and filled with a turbulent and disaffected populace of Ilindoos, Mahommedans, and Arabs ; so fanatical and so dangerous that no European ever thinks of entering it without a guard. Opposite to, and entirely commanded by, two of the towers which form part of the city wall, in a magnificent garden sloping down to the rapid stream, stands the Residency, one of the finest buildings of its class in India, but as completely undefended from attack as the most modern English country house, and entangled and sur rounded by a variety of native buildings consti tuting the suburb on the left bank of the river. Five miles fro►n the Residency is the British cantonment of Secunderabad, and six miles fur ther is Bolarum, the head-quarters of the Hyder abad contingent. At the outbreak of the revolt both these places—the latter of course entirely, the former almost entirely—were occupied, as has always been the case, by native troops. Up to the beginning of last year the temper of these troops had never been such as to cause any apprehension, not even so much as has occa sionally been felt in other parts of India which have continued tranquil. There have been ominous premonitions of the present crisis, but nothing like a mutiny has ever disturbed the tranquillity of British officers at Hyderabad. Whatever might be the temper of the Arab mercenaries within the walls, or the religious hatred entertained by a rancorous Mohammedan population towards us, at no time did either class receive any countenance from their rulers. The father of the present Nizam was our faithful ally. How far he might have remained so had the present revolt occurred in his time it is impossible to say ; but of the good faith and staunch alliance of his successor there can be no question. But how valuable, how deeply important his unswerving friendship has been to us, ►s perhaps not clearly understood in England. The Quarter4i Review, indeed, in its article on " British India," says that " SALAR " JUNG, the Minister of the Nizam of the " I)ekka►►, acting under the able guidance of " Colonel DAVIDSON, the Resident at the Court of " Ilyderabad, restrained, at the imminent risk of " his own life, a fanatical Mohammedan popula " tion eager for Christian blood." And this is perfectly true. An attempt at revolt was made, and, by the united exertions of the Vizier and his master, successfully quelled. Great was the danger we escaped. Had the Niza►n or his Minister given the slightest encouragement to the rebels—had they even remained passive spectators, a rising only second in importance to that of Delhi must have ensued. There was everything apparently to incline the balance against us. In the one ally to whom they 4 protector w h. — scale there was fidelity to an k r : os ty i t ie h c oe t fsmi o )o f awn i eii could never be at the best of times anything more than . be at t a s i i i B e o l oc h w e r t tit p power and influence se(ipied tottering to its tall. t Itinw up into a wide and cl in e p e t i l l i t i on o t tir o r vere i.gn there' ful assistamT, and the ready help of trop e ps r. p i) t iea n t i ll er o i t e . n titt p p e r s , , viti wl= 4 devastating flame. WIT Important aid afforded to him cal his, march into Southern India, A t umuNGZEBE had bestowed on th e ancestor of the present Nizam the distinction of Soubandar of the Dekkan : was it too much to hope that the holder of this proud title, reduced under the British dominion to the mere shadow of sove reignty, might take his rank among the poten tates of India, and enjoy once more the reality, and not merely the semblance of power ? Mid such thoughts possessed for the mind of the Nizam the attraction which they have done for other princes, it is not too much to say that our work in India would have been doubled. Even if the small band of sepoys who are supposed to guard the Residency had remained faithful, this could hardly have been the case with the I Iydcrabad Contingent, and the slaughter of every European in and about the place would have been the work of a few hours. Every ruler, great or small, who had been watching the movements of the Nizam would have cast in his lot with the mutineers, and the troops at Bombay and Madras could scarcely have been expected to exhibit the loyalty which under existing circumstances they have displayed. But the Nizam remained true— the worst crisis passed—and time was afforded for British troops to influence by their presence the temper of the country. But the Nizam did more than this. On a subsequent occasion he mani fested his loyalty in what, for him, was a still more remarkable and decisive fashion. He went through one of those ceremonies which seem puerile to Englishmen, but which, as we learn from the journals of Lord HASTINGS, have for the Oriental mind a deep significance.. By the entreaties of SALAR JUNG he was induced to pay a visit of state to the Resident—a pro ceeding which, with its attendant ceremonies, was equivalent to committing himself most thoroughly to our side, and taking the chance of all the enmity which so open an espousal of our cause might entail upon him. At this visit the compli mentary wreath of roses which it is usual to throw over the neck of a distinguished visitor, was duly conferred by the hand of the Resident, but the Nizam adopting the act in the fullest manner, and carrying out the ceremony to a much great extent than was necessary, wore it round his person during his return to his palace, being all the time unscreened from popular observation, and ex citing every species of comment on the part of his subjects. However absurd it may seem to us that a mere theatrical ceremony should involve considerations of such importance, it is affirmed by those who have resided in llyderabad all their lives, and thoroughly know the temper of the natives, that this proceeding was accomplished at the risk of his life ; that it was a matter of wonder that he should reach his o'vn roof in safety after so significant a manifestation of friendship to the Resident and devotion to our cause ; but, on the other hand, that this Rubicon being passed, the danger of subsequent disturb ance was indefinitely diminished. Now, our object in relating these facts is to raise the question whether we really have done anything to show our sense of such services. As far as we are at present informed, we apprehend that we have acted in such a manner as toin spire doubts whether we do not intend to , be positively as well as ne g atively ungrateful. I re viously to the circumstances just related, but sub sequently to the first attempt at revolt in Hyder abad, an event took place which showed that even there the seeds of disturbance had not been all sprinkled in vain. The Rajah of Shorapore, a feudatory of the Nizam, raised the standard 01 rebellion. He was not without resources, the accu mulation of which he owed to British assistance, and he succeeded so far as to detach himself tein porarily from the Nizam's rule. Ile was, of course, soon overcome when our threes took him in . hand, and we have sin c e rema i ne d masters of his territory. Now great apprehension prevails in the do minions of the Nizam that we intend to keep this district for ourselves. We may have the best intentions, of course ; but the tenor of our con- II