The Press.
London, England, 1858-01-16 00:00:00

No. 246.—V0L. VI.

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 16,1858.

STAMPED ....SIXPF.NCE.
UNSTAMPED ..FIVEPENCE.

Ot Vrtss.

officer of the 64th, captured in the affair in
which Wine;Ast suffered so much, was hanged,
we are told, on the gallows erected for executing
the mutineers by NEILL. A second, with a
studied mixture of cruelty and contempt, was
beaten to death with shoes ; the punishment
of the shoe being the most degrading of all
punishments in Eastern eyes. A third, it is
said, was tied to a cartwheel, and so crushed
to death. We, on our side, can hardly be said
to be behindhand in our retalition ; for though
we do not hear of any cruelties on the part of
our European soldiers, the doings of the
Ghoorkas in our employ are enough to make
the very blood rim cold. They spare
the women and children, but that is all.
The men of every village they enter they
butcher with fiendish barbarity, without re-
spect to guilt or innocence, occupation or age.
All are despatched by them with their crooked
knives. We think such proceedings wholly
wrong in a mere political point of view; but
we should equally record our protest against
them if they were in that respect as advan-
tageous as we are sure that they will prove the
reverse. For we think it utterly indefensible
in Christians to resort to such measures, and
cannot understand the morality that sets
Ghoorkas or Red Indians to do what we
should shudder at the thought of perpetrating
ourselves. We look on all this, therefore, as a
very vile as well as a very inefficient sub-
stitute for that overwhelming European force
which, with the amplest means of moving, it
was the duty of the Government from the first
to provide.
It is now a twelvemonth since the first
unmistakeable signs of the coming storm
appeared ; it is about eight months since the
Meerut massacre occurred. It is seven
months since Lord ELLENBOROUGH brought
the matter prominently before the House of
Lords, and unfolded his views regarding
the mode in which the rebellion must be dealt
with, and which his great military knowledge
and thorough experience of India had assured
him could alone be crowned with success.
But he and Mr. DISRAELI, who spoke in the
same spirit in the House of Commons, were
both called alarmists ; and Ministers, like the
ostriches of the African desert, to whom Lord
ELLENBOROUGH compared them, thought they
had escaped the danger by merely hiding it
from their eyes. In India similar counsels
prevailed. The revolt was treated there, too,
by the Government as a mere passing mutiny,
that was speedily to be subdued at a very tri-
fling cost, whether of money or of life. If
regiments were despatched in largo numbers
to the East, they were despatched avowedly
rather to silence Conservative cavils than out
of any real conviction on the part of the Cabi-
net of the necessity of the step. It was the
same in regard to calling the Militia out. Then
as to carriage for the troops, when they got out
there the Governor-General provided none.
He either thought, apparently, that the ser-
vices of these regiments would never be
wanted in the field, or else he must have been
ignorant that transport was requisite for their
movement. Had it been otherwise, there can be
no conceivable reason why he should not have
collected all the necessary carriage, having, as
he had, such ample time before him. If there
was little to be got in Lower Bengal, there was
nothing to prevent his obtaining as much
as he wanted from the North-West after
Delhi had fallen, and from Madras.
His power was only limited by his funds;

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 1858.

Oen position in India is so far encouraging
that we have an able Commander-in-Chief
there equal to every emergency, anti who is a
host in himself. The courage, the sagacity,
the fertility of resource which he has dis-
played are beyond all praise. He has shown
himself to be, what Lord Et.i.xxsoaoueu lately
characterised him, a lion fit to lead lions ; and
wherever he may be we are sure that victories
will be gained. This, indeed, was what we
always predicted, knowing the extremely high
opinion that the late Sir CHARLES NAPIER had
formed of him, and also how distinguished
had been his past career. It may be remem-
bered how warmly and uniformly wo sup-
ported him when driven from India in disgust
by Lord DALuoustx, and passed over by Lord
PANMURE during the Crimean campaign. The
eminent qualities he is now displaying are a
sufficient comment on the wisdom or the

honesty that superseded him by a junior at
Sebastopol, when the death of the illustrious
RAGLAN and the retirement of Sir JAMES
SIMPSON had fairly opened up his way to the
command.
But though we have a most excellent Com-
mander-in-Chief in India, still it is daily be-
coming more and more clear to the public
that he has not those means at his disposal
fur crushing the enemy which he ought to
have. To ourselves and our readers this has
been obvious all along. The eighty-five thou-
sand Europeans which the newspapers here
were so fond of dilating on, have now dwin-
dled down to a very moderate force. From
twenty-three to twenty-eight thousand are the
most it is said that there will be—even when
all that are due in Calcutta shall have arrived
there—for the whole of Bengal. And of these,
the Times correspondent tells us, there are
(lying off or being disabled about three hun-
dred a week, besides the casualties at the Pre-
sidency that drink is causing among the new
arrivals there. This is a much greater expen-
diture of men than our present shipments of
recruits to India ' will replace. Besides,
however brave and enduring our troops
may be (and it would be difficult to
'over-estimate either their bravery or
their endurance), human nature has put
limits to man's capacity for exertion, and if
these be over-stepped his frame gives way.
unless, therefore, our estimate of what is pos-
sible from soldiers be grievously at built, it
will be utterly beyond the power of Su Cow
'to restore peace to India with such a force as
this. That the mutineers take the same view
is perfectly clear from their acts ; and they
Atught to be good judges by this time of what
can be done by our European troops. After
all their defeats (though we suspect that
ti their losses have been in many instances ex-
aggerated), it might be expected that they
would rather overrate than underrate our
power to inflict eventual retribution for all
4hat might be done. But it is plain that our
victories have not yet had that effect ; on the
contrary, the rebels seem more and more
savage and defiant as the affair goes on. One

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but these, too, would have been ample if
the advice of the Conservative leaders had
prevailed. Yet, with all these means at his
disposal, we know that till Sir COLIN lauded
nothing had been done ; and when the
preparations ought to have been far advanced
towards completion, they had not even
been commenced. The consequence has been
that the time for action has been wasted, as
we long since foretold. From sheer want of
troops to preserve order, the rebellion has
been allowed to make head in every direction,
and the want of troops has been occasioned
mainly by the want of means to move them
up. Thus the revolt breaks out at fresh
places as fast as it is put down, and the news
of the most glorious victories is received with
apathy, because it is felt that they produce so
little fruit. The rebels, beaten one day, are
ready for the encounter again the next; and,
wherever order has been restored, insurrection
has raised its head again, as soon as the VIM
have marched on to meet some other foe.
None who really understand the matter will
be surprised, therefore, that, after all our
anxieties, all our labours, all our sacrifices,
pecuniary and of life, we should still in the
opinion of those in India most capable of
judging be as far almost as ever from the com-
pletion of our task. We seem in the eyes of these
to resemble the wretch depicted by the an•
cients whose weary task it was to roll up a
stone that perpetually fell back again—a
haupy picture of ceaseless and of fruitless toil.
The true reason of this is not that the rebel-
lion was a matter impossible, or oven very
difficult, to be dealt with effectually in the
outset, if the men who had to deal with it had
only understood their work. The failure to
suppress it has arisen mainly from the igno-
-311
ranee of the Governor-General and of
Ministers as to the nature of the crisis,
their determination to close their eyes to all
facts that told against their, precedin
or themselves. A quack may call the
pox a nettle-rash in despite of the p
and be allowed to treat it as sedh ; but
parent must not be surprised if in that
his child is killed. So it has been with
rebellion '
phesied

on from first to last. Those who pro-
d smooth things were listened to, while
who explained the real. nature of'the
were discredited. But now at last the
is prevailing, and people are beginning
that the latter were right. • Still more
will become that conviction when the
n• the cost incurred by the rebellion
)e produced to touch John Brill in the
rest point. The magnitude of it may be
Lted by the reluctance which the Minis-
ave shown to make it public ; but riblit
it be made very soon. Then, pethaps,
vhen our more deeply to be deplored
in men, too, are reckoned up, it will .lie
vho were the best friends of the nation.
vho it was that gave it ale soundest
s. The Conservatives who did not keel-
t the outset to proclaim ..:tude
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iich it might at one jP" 't. ''-' -'7.,,
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1 Ministers who t* I. ..-- : ^ 1 '?.--
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E EVENTUALIT -eilrt....?"—.!Al
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Zany years past th• e , ,f s • ; •
ass in the direction of Social Reform.