The Press.
London, England, 1855-11-03 00:00:00

SPAIN.

-.:.,~ U

The Ministerof Finance, M. Bruil, has, with the
consent of his colleagues, decided that half the
produce of the sale of national effects during the
year 1856—that is to say, 109 millions—sball be em-
ployed in paying off the debts of the State, and that
in this arrangement the holders of the passive bonds
shall not be tOrgotten.
The Saragossa faction had been destroyed, end
its leaders made prisoners.
The illness of the King had been caused by a
severe fall from his horse.
INDIA AND CHINA.
The following despatch from Trieste in anticipa-
tion of the overland mail was received on Thursday :
Trieste, Oct. 31.
The steamer Calcutta arrived to-day in 125 hours
from Alexandria.

The India and China mails left Alexandria on the
25th for Marseilles, with dates from Bombay of
October 3 ; Madras, September 27; Calcutta, Sep-
tember 23; Hongkong, September 15 ; and Shanghai,
September 7.
The Santhal insurrection was dying out.

Mr. Conolly, collector in MaleLar;-had been mur-
dered by the Moplabs.

THE SANTHAL INSURRECTION.

THE following account of the origin of the outbreak
of the Santhals in Bengal is from the pen of an
officer on the spot, and may be implicitly relied on :

The Santhals inhabiting the hilly country to the north
of Berhampore as far as the Bhagulpore district subsist
almost as much upon the produce of the chase as from the
cultivation of the soil; hence they contributed but little,
till within the past few years, in the way of taxes. Per-
haps the whole Santhal revenue, at the commencement of
Lord Dalhousie's reign, did not exceed six thousand
rupees per annum, being levied at the rate of four annas
per beegah. The existing state of the revenue did not,
however, keep pace with the aggressive policy of the uew
governorgeneral, and it became necessary before long to
devise some new sources of income. To the imagination
of Lord Dalhousie and of the officials by whom he was
surrounded, well trained in the school of torture, nothing
appeared so well adapted for the purpose as to put on the
screw. The Santhals having the character of being a race
of demi-savages, easy to be controlled, and by no means
fcrrnidable in point of number or organisation, it was de-
termined to commence with them. The process was
gradual. First the rates were raised from four annas to
eight annas, then to one rupee per beegah. Year after
year did Mr. Poutel, the. Government tax-gatherer, report
the fruit of his labours in an immensely-increased revenue,
until in 1851 he was enabled to show by his returns that
the district which a short time back yielded only six thou-
sand, now produced sixty thousand rupees yearly to Go-
vernment. Such a state of things could not be otherwise
than gratifying to the microscopic mind of the Scotch
marquis : it was accordingly deemed fitting that Mr.
Poutel should receive some substantial mark of viceregal
gratitude. Accordingly, a few months ago Mr. Cecil Bea-
don, the Financial Secretary of State, forwarded to Mr.
Poutel on behalf of Governments gold watch, accompanied
by a letter, in which that official was expressly informed
that the watch was intended as a token of the satisfaction
of Government with his conduct in increasing the state of
the revenue. _ .

By this gift the Government, with Lord Dalhousie at
their head, distinctly took upon their own shoulders the
responsibilty of Mr. Poutel's acts. This will be the more
readily conceded when it is considered that the Govern-
ment was composed principally of men who had spent
their lives in judicial and revenue employ, and who must
therefore have known how impossible it was to increase a
revenue from six to sixty thousand rupees in so short a
period by fair means. Let us now examine what were the
means employed by Government, means which have at
the same time succeeded in raising simultaneously a re-
venue and an outbreak. . .

To the first increase the Santhals patiently submitted.
To meet the second and third, however, they were com•
pelled to have recourse to native gomashtas or bankers.
By this class they were accommodated at the reasonable
rate of cent. per cent. Thus matters went till 1854—the
revenue being gradually raised, and the debts of the San-
thals, to meet the new revenue, increasing in monster
proportion. In 1854 they found themselves unable any
longer to satisfy the gomashtas, and they represented
their case to the collector, but represented in vain. The

SATURDAY,

gomashtas, unable to obtain the money, at once proceeded
to distrain, and seized all the cattle upon which they could
lay hands. Hearing of this outrage, forty-four of these
men, Santhal chiefs, men of great weight amongst the San.
thals, went to the gomashtaa as the cattle were being ear.
ried off, and, without making any attack, simply threatened
them with vengeance if they should attempt a like outrage
again. For this threat these chiefs were seized, brought up
before the civil courts, and sentenced to transportation for
fourteen years! It can easily be imagined the state of
ferment in which the whole tribe was thrown on receipt of
this intelligence. For a time, however, they were pacified
by being informed that the sentence would not be valid
until confirmed by the Sudder Court in Calcutta. Will it
be believed that, notwithstanding their complete know-
ledge of all that has been related above, the sentence was
confirmed, the Santhals were transported, and, as a matter
of course, this insurrection at once broke out? Such are
the main facts of the case. The Punjab and Burmese
wars, and the other notorious extravagances of Lord Dal-
housie, led to an increased expenditure of revenue ; this
led to exorbitant taxation and its consequent tyranny and
oppression. By the combined influence of these, the
most devoted subjects of the Company have been driven
into rebellion, blood has been shed like water, private pro-
perty destroyed, villages burned in profusion (that favourite
system of Lord D.), our prestige injured, and as for the
revenue, the sixty thousand will have diminished to zero.
Such is the policy of Lord Dalhousie—on the eve of his
departure the goose has been killed fur its golden eggs.

THE AUSTRIANS IN THE PRINCIPALITIES.
THE following account of some of the leading
brutalities committed by the Austrian soldiers during
their occupation of tho principalities is not without
interest. The total impunity which the Austrian
soldiery enjoy in the committal of their brutal
atrocities upon the inhabitants is a proof bow little
justice those unfortunates can hope for at the hands
of their protectors:—
On the 2nd of October the proprietor of a vineyard nett
to the Prussian consul's house, outside of Bucharest, was
murdered by a band of fifteen or twenty Austrian soldiers,
and two of his watchers were severely wounded. This
vineyard had been robbed the two preceding nights by a
similar band of Austrian soldiers, and it was in the hope
of protecting his vines that the proprietor was these watch-
ing with his servants. The plunder was continued on the
two nights following the murder, for the family of the
murdered man kept close in their house, which they
barricaded for the protection of their lives, while no one
fora moment thought of making the facts known to any
of the local authorities, long and painful experience having
convinced the population of the total impunity which the
Austrian soldiery enjoy. Two Wallachian surgeons re-
fused to have anything to do with the treatment of the
men who had been wounded by the Austrians, lest a
similar fate should befal themselves. A Prussian surgeon,
at the request of the servants of the Prussian consul, who
had been brought to the spot by the cries of the wounded,
wok one of the watchers into his hospital, where he also
died on the second day. Previous to his death the
surgeon prevailed on the family to make the outrage
known to the Government, that the depositions of the
dying man might be taken in time. The officials at the
Ministry of the Interior refused to draw up any precis
verbal, or take any official notice of the matter, as soon as
they heard that Austrian soldiers were concerned. These
bands of soldiers, varying from fifteen to twenty in
number, who thus made nightly razziaa outside the town,
must in each case have passed the barriere, where an Aus-
trian guard is posted to watch over all ontgoers and in-
comers, and have returned unquestioned, although the
time of the sortie was from ten till twelve o'clock at
night. Within a few days of the above affair the proprietor
of another vineyard outside another barriere was also mal-
treated within an inch of his life by Austrian soldiers,
whilst watching his property during the night.
The Moldavian Government is already in possession of
substantial evidence of forty odd cases of murder committed
by Austrian soldiers in that principality alone up to the
end of the summer. These crimes are in almost all
cases committed in connection with petty thefts, either for
the purpose of stealing or in consequence of meeting with
resistance. 'f he above statement my friend had from the
private secretary of the reigning Prince, M. Greiner.
Unlike his brother Hospodar in Wallachia, who endeavours
as much as possible to hush up any complaints against
Austrian subjects, Prince Ghika is very frank and plain-
spoken in his remonstrances with the Austrian military
authorities; but, as he assured my friend, " There is no
discipline in this army ; the officers have no power over
their men to control them in their excesses." The same
statement he met with unvaryingly from the different local
governors, and throughout Moldavia the hatred and fear of
the Austrian soldiery have now reached as fearful a degree
as in Wallachia. Throughout the two principalities there
is but one voice and one sentiment with regard to the
brutal conduct of the men, and the reckless behaviour of
the officers.

Two of the most flagrant instances of these excesses
that have recently happened in Moldavia were, first, that
of the president of the municipality of Fokschani, who
was grievously maltreated and bad his arm broken by
Austrian soldiers, because they refused to find them qoar-
ters, they not being at the time provided with any billeting
tickets. The other was that of a Moldavian officer, who
had the misfortune to get into a wordy contention with
twenty-seven Austrian soldiers at a place of public enter
tainment in Bakan, on which they fell upon him and
stabbed him to death with their bayonets. A member of
the committee of investigation which inquired into this
matter (the officer was in the household of the Prince)
explained to my friend that nothing had actually been
proved, since it was impossible to ascertain which of the

NOVEMBER 3, 1855•

soldiers had really given the fatal wound, and who was, in
fact, the beginner of the quarrel ! This individual was the
Austrian starost in Bakan. It is the knowledge of this
impunity which increases the outrages both in number and

flagrancy.
A few months back an Austrian colonel, not being satis-
fied with the quarters allotted to him, went to the quarter-
master's office, and there kicked and boxed the ears of the
secretary. This happened in Bucharest. The Wallachian
Government could not avoid requiring satisfaction of some
sort. In the answer which the colonel sent in to the in-
quiries of the commander of the town it was stated that
" the secretary met him with disrespectful indifference,"
that " he had a sneering expression of countenance that
might irritate anybody," and the colonel, being already
hurt in his susceptibility, had, to the "regret of both," pro-
ceeded to an overt act, which must, in consequence of the
great provocation, be "looked on as balanced I" The
secretary constantly affirmed that he had given no provo-
cation at all.
The total expense of the Austrian army of occupation in
Wallachia up to the end of last June was 3,500,000 pias-
tres. In Moldavia the outgoings of the Government for
this purpose exceeded 300,100 piastres per month, and so
there must be at least another 3,500,000 reckoned for the
occupation of Moldavia. The inhabitants of these two
fertile principalities are thus made to pay for the tyranny
that crushes them, and the brutality that intimidates them,
at the rate of 7,300,000 piastres per annum.—Times Paris
Correspondent, October 29.