The Press.
London, England, 1857-10-24 00:00:00

censorship, has ordered it immediately to cease, and
stringent instructions have been issued to admit
printed books free of all charges whatsoever.
The Academy of Fine Arts at Milan has voted the
sum of (10,000 livres for the erection of a statue to
Leonardo de Vinci.

The Archduke, Governor-General of Venetian-
Lombardy, anti the Archduchess, reached Venice on
the 14th from Monza. The next morning the
Governor-General embarked on board the Elizabeth
for Pole, in order to inspect the Austrian fleet now
in the Adriatic and the gigantic fortress now com-
pleting at Pola. These illustrious personages will
leave for Milan about the 26th, and will return to
Venice in December, where they will remain with
the Court till the end of the carnival.
Civita Vecchia is about to be enlarged by throwing
back the ramparts. This measure became necessary
from the great increase of the population of that
city owing to the Roman railroad.
It has been officially announced that cm the Ist of
November the Government of Parma will place cus-
tom houses on the frontiers which separates the
Duchy from the Austrian possessions. This vir-
tually puts an end to the Austro-Italian Zolverin.
The Duke of Modena, although inclined to follow
the example of Parma, has nut yet come to a deci-
sion.

THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA.
TO TILE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS."

Sir,—Lord Canning has at least rendered us one
service,—he has completed the demonstration of his
own unfitness for a station that demands talents
which he does not possess, and an energy that he
cannot supply. He has no appreciation of a crisis
in which, as a French writer justly remaiks, " the
high position of England is at stake," and which
must terminate either in the loss of India, or in the
reconstruction of our Eastern empire upon a basis
so broad and durable as to defy all shock of hostile
storms.

The success of such generals as Havelock,
Nicholson, and Neill shows that our danger does
not lie in the chances of the field ; but the heroism
of our soldiers, and the military skill and determina-
tion of Sir Colin Campbell, will all be thrown away,
unless the destinies of India are confided to a real
statesman of high character and large experience,
practically acquainted with the evils of our past
administration, and capable of overcoming all the
obstacles to the inauguration of a new policy, juster,
firmer, and wiser than that which has existed
heretofore.

The practical question is, will the people of this
country compel the Government to replace a
Governor-General, lost in petty detail, and sur-
rounded by feeble, and vacillating advisers, by a man
equal to the emergency, and who would carry
with him the confidence of all classes in-
terested in the re-establishment of British
rule. Lord Canning is most anxious to retain those
civil officials whose incapacity and self-conceit were
the proximate causes of the outbreak, and the acts
of his Government from first to last are a series of
exhibitions of the qualities best adapted to bring an
empire to decay.
Let us adduce an instance. On the breaking
out of the mutiny the inhabitants of Calcutta
offered their personal services to the Govern-
ment, and received in reply an official letter
from Lord Canning's secretary, dated 25th of May
last, assuring them that their alarm was needless, as
implicit confidence could be placed in the loyalty
of every station and regiment which have since
mutinied. This precious document affirmed—

That the mischief caused by a passing groundless panic
had already been arrested, and that there was every reason
to hope that in the course of a few dabs tranquillity and
confidence would be restored throughout the Pre-
sidency (!)

It has been by nursing themselves in these insane
delusions that Lord Canning and his Council have
handed over our countrymen and countrywomen
to massacres and tortures, at winch all Europe
has stood appalled. So impossible was it to
rouse Lord Canning from his apathy, that
when at the beginning of the revolt he was told
that some natives were in treaty for the pur-
chase of a couple of cannon in the Calcutta
Bazaar, his reply was, " that lie could find no law by
which he could stop the bargain ;" and while his
lordship was vainly hunting for legal precedents,
taken from some quiet times, the guns were on their
way to the enemy, and are known to have been em-
ployed against us at Arrah!
If subsequent events had afforded any cause for
believing that Lord Canning or his advisers had any
capacity for growing wiser by misfortune, there might
be some argument against their supercession; but •

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series of gross errors, capped with the climax of this
last proclamation, proves the continuance of his lord.
ship's administration to be a source of danger to our
empire, far beyond that of all the mutineers and their
abettors put together.

A time of open war is a time when every encou-
ragement and facility should be given to the prompt
and vigorous operations of our soldiers, and this has
been the occasion chosen by the Governor-General
to adopt every silly and vexatious means of thwart-
ing their proceedings and stopping their arm.
When the safety of our countrymen at Lucknow
demanded instant aid, and every hour was precious,
her Majesty's 00th and the sth Fusiliers were re-
called from 3lirzapore to Dinapore, entailing a loss
of ten days ; when the troops needed every encou-
ragement to sustain them, the Government sanc-
tioned a divisonal order, insulting the whole army,
by condemning her Majesty's 10th as cold-blooded
murderers upon mere gossip, and without one iota
of reliable evidence being obtained against a single
man. When Mr. J. Taylor, the Commissioner of Patna,
for once in bis life exhibited symptoms of efficiency
in dealing with the mutineers, he was immediately
superseded ; and as the north-west provinces were
most importantly implicated in the revolt, Mr. J. P.
Grant, a man of so little vigour that he was never
known to get himself dressed by midday, and quite
enamoured of the " dear sepoys," was sent for their
especial protection as governor of the district, to the
infinite disgust of every British inhabitant and of the
European soldiers, from whose anger, it is said, he
is obliged to save himself by hiding in his own house.
And lastly came a proclamation, which in point of
English would require a month's study for its com-
prehension, the object of which was to take away
trona the military authorities the power of dealing
with deserters, and which, if acted upon, will
employ every British soldier in the country in running
backwards and forwards to Allahabad, escorting any
pri.oners they might be lucky enough to catch.
Sir Colin Campbell will of course do his utmost to
put an end to these monstrous ways ; but unless
that gallant soldier proves a complete Hercules, he
will never be able to escape from the red tape with
which Lord Canning and his Council will bind him;
and to show that the picture in Punch is no exag-
geration, I quote a letter from the Rev. Alex-
ander Duff, one of the ablest of the clergy at Calcutta.
On the 14th of August that gentleman writes:—
Unless Sir Colin Campbell has come out with full
authority to act on his own responsibility, it is but right
that the people of Great Britain should know that they
might as well have sent out decrepitude itself to be the
commander-in-chief. The reign of red.tapeism at home
was bad enough, as the Crimean disasters have sadly
proved; but here, in its more complete absolutism, it has
reached the very climax of arrogant emptiness, imbecility,
and folly. Its incurable presumption and weakness has
had much to do with the growth and spread of insurrec•
tion ; and I am sure that I speak the mind of all classes
of Europeans in this country (except, of course, the
civilians) when I say that we are literally groaning under
it. Oh ! what would we give now, if we had only a man
like the Duke of Wellington or the late Sir Charles Napier
for an absolute dictator!

Can anyone resist the conclusion that Lord Can-
ning is not that Absolute Dictator the British residents
in India require ?—Yours, (k.c.,

TFIE CALCUTTA MEMORIAL, from the merchants,
bankers, professional men, and other English inha-
bitants of Calcutta, praying for a change in the ad-
ministrative affairs of India, has been intrusted to
the care of Mr. H. Meade, who has arrived in
London with the view to prosecute the cause of the
memorialists, and generally to call the attention of
the public at home to the condition of the East
Indian territory and to the present position of its
inhabitants.

THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROMOTION
OF SOCIAL SCIENCE brought their labours to a close
with a general meeting last Friday, at the Midland
Institute, Birmingham, in order to settle the title
and objects of the society.' The title as above was
settled. The committee recommends that the
council be empowered to make arrangements for a
proper office and staff in London, and to appoint
committees and secretaries from time to time as they
may deem advisable. An official report of the pro-
ceedings is to be published.
rim QUESTION of turnpike abolition and main-
tenance of roads by assessment, which has been for
ten years in agitation in Haddingtonshire, as well as
in the counties of Fife, Forfar, Lanark, and others,
was brought to a crisis in the first-named county at
a meeting of the general turnpike trustees held at
Haddington on Thursday last. A keen and am-
mated debate took place, in which the proposed
reform was advocated by Lord Eleho, M.P. for the
county, and resisted by the Right Hon. R. A. Chris-
topher Nisbet Hamilton, M.P. for South Lincoln-
shire. The result was that the numbers were equal
for and against reform, when the chairman (Lhe
Marquis of Tweeddale) gave his casting vote against
She proposed change.