The Press. — London, England, 1857-08-22 00:00:00

t i rt 614 eab, No. 225.—V0L.V. LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 22, 1857. STAMPED . ..STXPENCE. UNSTAMPE.D..FIVEPENCE. Cy ress. steps to manage and control. That the Com" pany will evade this duty, if permitted to do so by the English public, we are very sure. It becomes, therefore, the honest part of it at once to speak out. The sufferers will thus learn who are their real and who are their pretended friends— those who confine themselves to tales of the vengeance we are to take at Delhi, while allow ing the victims of the mutineers to starve, or those who, leaving the military operations to the Government, are disposed to insist on succour to the victims of its mismanagement LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 22, 1857. Is the letter of the late Sir CHARLES NAPIER which was published in the Times on Monday last, the public were presented with a few samples of the beneficent Government of India during late years. We were there told of por ters pressed by thousands to carry a Governor- General's baggage, and then left for above a year and a half unpaid—of cultivators dragged from their fields, along with their carts and bullocks, to convey the baggage and stores of the army, and so taken hundreds of miles, often without any remuneration, till their bul locks died on the road and their carts had fallen to bits—of men detained in this way months and sometimes years from their homes, and then finding on their return their wives in the keeping of the officials who had pressed them—and of organised debaucheries on the part of the governing class calculated to drive the dart deep into the native's soul. There is no one acquainted with what we may call India behind the scenes who will not at once recognise the truth and fidelity of the old hero's tale. We have reason to believe upon the best authority that one Resident turned his Residency into a scene of wholesale juve nile prostitution. We have heard, too, of other high functionaries acting over again the part of Angelo with Isabella. We could name an Indian civilian who has boasted openly that when either of the parties to a suit before him was a woman, and a pretty one, he always made the sacrifice of her honour the price of his decree. We could point out a district where the feeling of the people on the subject of the misconduct of women is so strong that the discovery of misbehaviour invariably entails death on the erring sister, or daughter, or wife, and as a consequence the execution afterwards of the husband, father, or brother who has thus wiped out, as he supposes. the family stain. And in that district a regiment composed largely of the lowest caste men has been openly en couraged by their commanding officer in schemes of systematic seduction and abduc• tion ; and he has used language so gross when remonstrated with by the police officers and the magistrates that it would have insured his expulsion with ignominy from any other service in the world. Yet that man has enjoyed the protcetion of the Government because he happened to have interest with the Governor ; and the regiment has been notorious for its outrages and infamies from that day to this. Indeed, all who have read the "Life of Napier," or studied Indian questions general!y, must have long since observed that it is not on the perpetrators of abuses, but on the exposers of them that the East India Directors have always hurled their bolt. Their maxim throughout has been, " Collect for us as much money as pos " Bible ; and as to the rest do just as you like, " only do not trouble us." Micarav - Eua tells us that the most absolute despotism may long flourish, provided that LATEST EDITION. the ruling class abstains from violating the rights of property in the vanquished, and from everything like outrages on the female sex. The East India Directors, however, appear not to value ntentAVELLI, for their whole system has been oue continued breach of the law which he thus lays down. The extent to which the rights of property have been vio lated was explained very lucidly in the Con servative Leader's late speech, and the extent to which outrages on women have been tole rated the accounts of the outbreak in Cabal, the letter of the late Sir CHARLES NAPIER, and the tales one hears in Indian society disclose. Nor is it only the poorer class of women that have been the sufferers. At Cabul the ladies seduced were nearly all women of family, and in one of the instances quoted by us the victim of the judge was a woman of consider able social rank. In the case of the Nagpore princesses, also, though their virtue remained untouched, the insults heaped upon them were so dishonouring as to arouse the feelings of the most coldblooded to vengeance. One of them, we have been informed, was so heart broken by the treatment received at the hands of our officials that she has since sunk into the grave. When such has been the nature of the rule to which, as disclosed in its naked deformity, we have subjected the people of India, it is not very surprising that the advisers of Lord CANNING shoull have prevailed upon him to try and stifle all inquiry into the causes of this rebellion by putting a gag upon the Indian press. These causes, however, no one can have the least difficulty in discovering who has perused the accounts from India that have come from independent sources ; and more especially that admirable picture which was presented in the late petition of the mis sionaries of Bengal. But, happily, the mea. sures which these shortsighted councillors are taking to stifle all discussion are precisely those which will intensify it in a tenfold degree. Already do we see that the suppres sion of the right of publication in India is likely to be productive of much more effective appeals to public opinion at home. However much, therefore, we may reprobate the restric tions which have been placed on the loyal European press in India, we can hardly regret them, because they will transfer the contro versy from India here. And, after all, the battle of Indian wrongs and Indian remedies must be fought out here, and not at Calcutta ; for here alone are to be found the men and the machinery adequate to so vast a reform. But though we are not surprised at the Government and its agents endeavouring to cut off all knowledge of what has been going on in India by stifling discussion at its source there, we were certainly not prepared fur so reckless a display of power as is involved in the refusal to grant compensation to the sufferers by the rebellion which their own misgovern ment has evoked. On every principle of law and equity, whether English or Indian, the district is liable to make good the damage which has been caused by such outrages. But the landlords of the revolted districts are the East India Company, and they are bound, unless determined to repudiate their engage ments, to make good the loss. Indeed, if it be, as they aver, merely a sepoy mutiny, they are doubly bound to compensate the sufferers for the damage done. For in that case the injury has been inflicted by their own hired servants, whom it was their business to take proper in the shape of the compensation which it is the business of the East India Company to afford. Barbarous as have been the proceed ings of the mutineers, we shall scarcely fall short of them in barbarity if we hesitate to compel the Company to do its duty to those who have lost everything through its miscon duct, and only escaped perhaps with their lives. But without compulsion nothing will be done ;of that we are quite convinced. The Government which has left millions to die of famine periodically without holding , out a hand to help them, will not, it will he seen, show much greater charity to its ruined sub• jects of our own colour and blood. Its own servants it may compensate, for they are the relatives and proteges of the Directors them selves. 'Blit it is not for these alone, but fAr all the sufferers by the outbreak, that the Conservative Leader in the House of Commons has raised his voice, and it remains for Os independent and honest portion of the press and of the public to give effect to his efforts in their behalf. THE DIVORCE BILL AND THE CORONATION OATH. IT is with much pain that we recall to our readers' minds a series of articles which we considered it our duty to lay before them in the autumn of last year. We then pointed out to the clergy of the Established Church that whatever special objection any of them might entertain to the party of Lord DERBY, or whatever partialities they might feel for individual statesmen of a different connection, they would find in the long run that it was upon the Conservative party alone that the Church must eventually rely. We addressed these observations equally to all classes of Churchmen ; and had they at the last general election exerted themselves in conformity with the warning therein contained, they would not have now to deplore the most audacious attack upon the privileges and independence of the Church since the days of CROMWELL. The concession of the `Attorney•Generai upon Tuesday night appeared to have left the question of *" Divorce Bill footing. The to marry those them to unit broad and think, the but leaving . with all other This much declare she be more illogical s .. If the compulsory clause in the ill upon a settled and satisfactory 'he clergy were not to be ~ A . ,..•“*":” • 'llO iose whom their:consc 21.__„, , .. tnite. This is the en. . e . r'w 4 Y• l 1 1i# •—.. ‘, 1 ,..... Or simple principle ; pad - , „,, • ...." i . matter might have r. • _4 7 - f; - the Church upon te.. 'nli ... ii ii"`'.a. :/.% her religious bodies i."--;'.. sc', s. „ - i - 1, .. 1, at least, commonki a zLiL ' ';‘, s jl . ' e is entitled to ; foli:n 7' 1 7.1'4 ..; 7-0,-4,4 a • logical than to grant - 4