The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-19 00:00:00

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No. 229.—V0L.V. LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 19,1857. STAMPED .... STXPENCE.
UNSTAMPED ..F IVEPENCE.

ge brass.

pounds ; and there is not, we believe, a single
member of the body who possesses more than
that SUM. The interest of each in the concern
is, therefore, just a hundred and five pounds
annually ; that is the exact amount of the
security which the Crown and nation hold
from them against their making ducks and
drakes for their own personal profit, and for
that of their friends, of the twenty-six millions
of annual revenue which they are trustees for
in Hindostan. And even that security is,
after all, fictitious; for being behind the
scenes they can dispose of this last thousand,
as they have already got rid of the rest of
their stock, before the final crash arrives.
To these men, we repeat, the news from
India may be cheering, just as the directors of
cemetery companies look gay when the cholera
comes. But it will not prove cheering to the
rest of England, any more than it has proved
to ourselves. It is not cheering, for instance,
to us to learn that three more regular regi-
ments on the Bengal aide have mutinied,
besides an irregular regiment, and another
regiment that in anticipation of mutiny had
been already disarmed. It is not cheering to
be told that the latter has murdered its com-
manding officer, and that the irregular regi-
ment has massacred both its con►mading
officer and his wife. It is not cheering to
know that the epidemic has spread to Bombay,
and that the 27th Regiment there has risen,
and tried to murder all its officers, having
actually succeeded in killing three. It is not
cheering to hear that the intention was to
slaughter the ladies of the regiment as well,
and that, only by the fidelity of a single native
officer, and the noble conduct of his mother,
they and their husbands were saved. It is
not cheering to be told that Delhi still holds
out, that our soldiers there are losing heart
at the apparent fruitlessness of their attacks ;
that in our camp there are men who communi-
cate all our intended movements to the enemy,
and that there are numbers there who wish
the latter well. It is not cheering to learn
that the Mahomedans of the Swat Valley
have broken out again, even though their first
attempt had been fortunately put down. It is
not cheering to know that a plot was entered
into to massacre the English at Benares and
,Tessore. It is not cheering to be told that
it is doubtful whether Agra has not fallen to
the mutineers, that 200 of our men had been
killed at Affair, and thatthere is no immediate
chance of relieving Lucknow. It is as little
cheering to hear that the Governor-General
has been obliged to disarm his body guard,
and has been reduced to the inexpressible
humiliation of accepting aid in his necessities
from the Minister and virtual Sovereign of
Nepaul. Those who know the antecedents of
JUNG BEHAUDER know that the monster NANA
SAHIB was a mere babe to him in the
treachery which he has through life exhibited,
and the atrocities which he has performed.
In the hands of this man, who has not only
the troops he brings with him to rely on, but
also the Ghoorkas in our employ, who are all
Nepaulese by birth, the fate of Calcutta and

of Lower Bengal will by this move be virtually
placed. Setting aside the humiliation of
seeking aid from such a source, we know of no
folly to equal it, saving that which called in
the infamous NANA SAHIB to help us at
Cawnpore.
Turning to the Bombay Presidency. there
is, besides the mutiny of the 27th Regiment,
which will destroy all confidence in that army,
a state of things prevailing of anything but a
cheering kind. The widow of the late Sove-
reign of Sattara, and her adopted son, have
been arrested for conspiracy, and the head of
the Mahoinedans at Poonah has been found.
plotting too. At Belgaum and Dharwar, and.
Rutnagherry,and Sattara, and Poonah,and Bom-
bay the English inhabitants were beginning
to anicipate the worst ; at Poonah they had even
gone !so far as to prepare for blowing up the
arsenal; and at Bombay they had on one occa-
sion been actually on the point of flying on
board their ships. Allowing that something
of this may have been the result of mere panic,
still that such panics should exist gives us
well-founded cause for alarm. For panics,
even though groundless in the outset, not
seldom produce in the end their foredreaded
effects. They afford precisely the kind of
encouragement which is often alone left want-
ing to make the people rise. Nor has the
danger failed to be greatly aggravated, as we
had expected, by the suicidal policy of the
Government in placing a gag upon the Anglo-
Indian press. By this means a knowledge of
the true state of things is prevented, the field
for false rumours is consequently widened,
and our countrymen have nothing to guide
them but the exaggeration of the Bazaar
reports. Universal ignorance is producing in
India, as it produces everywhere under similar
circumstances, universal fright. But, irre-
spective of this, there are not wanting real
grounds for deep anxiety, as we prophesied
there would be, if any of the troops of Bombay
were removed to furnish succour for Bengal.
We explained at an early stage of this dis-
cussion what a thorough state of disaffection
the Bombay provinces were in, owing to the
numerous jaghire resumptions, and to the
vexatious inquiries into titles that had there
prevailed. But in the face of this disaffec-
tion, all the available troops at the Governor's
disposal were sent to garrison Indore, and
the people of the Deccan, of course, began to
raise their heads as soon as they found that
the field was clear.
How long, we ask again and again, is such
folly and mismanagement to be allowed to
last? Is it to be for ever a case of tho blind
leading the blind, notwithstanding what we
know to he the necessary result? Is England.
to leave her cards to be played by men wholly
ignorant of the game, and while doing so to
stake her last man and her last shilling on
the event? If this is to be the state of things
it is right that, at any rate, the public should
know it—it is prop( the they should be
made to see clearly
are being led. It
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and the nobility
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