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

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 details 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 executioners
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

~..-...
THE PRESS, APRIL 3, 1858.
THE REVENUE. in 1
ens
you
I.—THE NET REVENUE.
I,
Quarter ended Year ended ann
1_
' )--..."'...., Afft
March 31, March 31, March 31, , March 31, ~,,,,
.
1857. I 1855. j 1857. I 1838. B°"i
pro
a I 2 I I I I abr
CUSTOMS
EXCISE
STAMPS 1,305.477 2,051,..173 . 7,372,203 7,415,712 me
TAXES , 260,020 308,033 1 3,116,046 3,152,033 I
PROPERTY TAX
POST OFFICE 777,000 705.000 , 2,886,000 12,920,1.10
)
CROWN LANDS 67,0044 70,000 , 284,857 I 274,654
MISCELLANEOUS 425,569 315,360 1,098,173 i 1,536,587 Na
to ]
TOTAL
lI.—COMPARATIVE STATEMENT.
I
Quarter ended 1 Year ended ]
March 31, 1858. March 31, 1858. at 1
Increase. Decrease. Increase. Decrease. Ma
i. I I A I A
CUSTOMS
EXCISE
STAMPS
TAXES
PROPERTY TAX
POST OFFICE 72,000 34,000
CROWN LANDS
MISCELLANEOUS
TOTAL 1,195,261 3,704,091 612,211 5,064,761 lair
, .
, sell
62,508,83 C 44.452,550 H.
Net Decrease. Net Decrease.

.....----
Quarter ended Year ended
1_ , ~...—..--A--.....
e."
March 31, March 31, March 31, March 31,
r 1857. I 1856. i 1857. 1 1838.
AI2I I I I
CUSTOMS
EXCISE
STAMPS 1,905.477 2,051,373 : 7,372,203 7,415,712
TAXES , 260,020 308,033 1 3,116,046 3,152,033
PROPERTY TAX
POST OFFICE 777,000 705.000 , 2,8146,000 1 2,920).00
CROWN LANDS 67,00(1 70000 , 284,857 i 276,654
MISCELLANEOUS 423,369 315,860 1,098,173 i 1,536,887
TOTAL

CUSTOMS .• • •
EXCISE
STAMPS
TAXES
PROPERTY T
POST OFFICE
CROWN LAND
MISCELLANEI
CUSTOMS
EXCISE
STAMPS
TAXES
PROPERTY V
POST OFFICE
CROWN LAND
MISCELLANE
Surplus Balance
dated Fund foi
Great I
Ireland
Income received
as shown in A
Money received
issued to repl
of in money
1847.8
Amount receivei
in repayment
Saving on the
year 1845/
Balance, being
11358, upon thi
Great Britain
Charges pays
and for which
issued in that
Jordon
Carlier,
The Empei
Prince Lupe
presented to I
Ferouk Kb
aid sail from
15th. He wi
to settle the
between Per
cers who are
will join him
FRA
The Gover
the new Con
desires to est