The Express.
London, England, 1855-05-18 00:00:00

THE INDIA MAIL.

We have received the usual despatches of the
Daily hews by the Overland Mail from India; the
dates from Bombay are to April 17, and from Cal-
cutta to April 10. The following is the news taken
from the summary of the Bombay Times :
" There have been two rather severe skirmishes on
our Pnnjaub Frontier. On the 19th of March, a
strong force under Colonel Craigie went out to ravage
the valley of the principal robbers and plunderers in
the neighbourhood, and having accomplished their
task, returned after a long and fatiguing march of
thirty miles. The Momunds having come down in
force on the 24th of March, on the garrison of Abuse',
were attacked and defeated, but, from the difficult
nature of the ground, without apparently any consi-
derable amount of slaughter.
"On the 30th March, a treaty of friendship with
the Cabal Government, was signed by Birder Goo-
lam Hyder Khan, on the part of Ameer Dost Ma-
homed Khan, and by Mr. John Lawrence, Chief
Commissioner of the Punjaub, on the part of Lord
Dalhousie, in full durbar, at Peshawar, under a royal
salute of 21 guns. The treaty was read out before
the assembled British officers and Affghan chiefs, in
both languages; and we are thus enabled to state,
that it contains three articles; by the first of which
friendship and peace are established between the
British Government and Dost Mahomed Khan and
his heirs; by the second, the East India Company
engages to respect the territories now possessed by
the Ameer, and not to interfere therein ; and by the
third, the Ameer and his heirs undertake not only to
do the same towards us, but to be the friends of our
friends, and the enemies of our enemies.

" The Governor General is on the Neilgherries,
and will be soon joined there by the Governor and
Commander-in-Chief of Madras. Lord Dalhousie's
health is such as to compel him to live perfectly
secluded, he lately removed from Ootscamund to
Kotagherry, at which place he will permanently esta-
blish his residence in the event of the air there agree-
ing better with him than that of the higher station,
which it is likely to do if be requires a mild climate.
" Lord Elpbinstone, in company with his tiiend,
the Hon. W. Elliott, Member of Council Madras, is
on a short visit to Mahabnleshwar. Tho Hon. A.
Malet arrived from Calcutta at Bombay on the 6th
instant, and was sworn in the same day as Fourth
Member of Council.

"By this steamer, Colonel Rawlinson, Political
Agent at Bagdad, goes home on fifteen months' sick
leave. A special meeting of the Bombay branch of
the Royal Asiatic Society was held immediately after
his arrival at the Presidency, to receive him and to
give him an opportuni+y of presenting the Society
with a brief view of his latest researches in Meoxpo-
tamia. It was the most numerously attended otany•
which has been held since the formation of the
Society, half a century ago, and of a most important
character. They had special reference to the con-
formity of the historical tablets and cylinders of
Chaldea, Assyria, and Babylonia with the Hebrew
scriptures, from the age of Abraham to the destroo-
lion of Babylon.
" The Supreme Government has ordered the con-
struction of a line of telegraph from Mireapore rig
Jubbulpore, Seeonee, Nagpore, and Hyderbad to
Bellary, connecting those places with the existing
lines between the capitals of the presidencies and the
Punjaub.
" the Bank of Bengal has lowered its rates of in-
terest on loans and discounts by one per cent.
" A native monster meeting was held at Madras
on the god, when it was resolved to forward a peti-
tion to Parliament, the objects of which are to refute
the denunciation of Sir Charles Wood, that the two
petitions forwarded from the Madras Association in
December, 1832, were a tissue of misrepresentations
and exaggeration,;--to point out the deficiencies of
the India Bill as respects the mode under which
admission to the Civil Service is in future to be
regulated so far as the natives are concerned in re-
qniring candidates to pass their examination in Eng-
land, subjecting those of the community to the loss
of caste as the consequence of their voyage to, and
temporary residence in, Europe—to repeat the re-
quest for a public commission of inquiry into the
actual condition of the Madras presidency, as the
only means by which the parliament and people of
England can be made fully acquainted with the state
of the people and the extent of the grievances under
which they have been so long suffering—to reiterate
the prayer contained in the two preceding peti-
tions for the introduction of constitutional govern.
ment, based on the example of the Crown colony of
Ceylon ;—to request that candidates for government
employ may be examined and passed in this country,
through the media of the universities which have
been promised at each of the three presidencies;—to
solicit that India may be placed directly under the
government of the Crown:—and seventh and last,
that the native temples may be managed by definite
regulations, and rendered subject to efficient control.
" Early on the same day a meeting was held in the
College-hall, Madras, on the =salon of the opening
of Dr. Hunter's enlarged' School of Industrial: Art.-)
The school has not only paid its expenses, but
re. 14,000 have been accumulated daring the five
years.
"Much sensation has been canoed bye late scanda-
lous libel cane in the Supreme Court at Calcutta,
where a chaplain of the Hon. Company's service
sued a young lady for having said that he had
attempted an act of indecent violence upon her, and
where the judgment was for the defendant, on the
score that she had established the fact.
" Trade is still depressed, and in a very unaatin-1
factory state. Freights are steady and tonnage plen-
tiful. Exchange is favourable for remitters, but
money is tight and scarce in all quarters."

MILITARY

Casualties by death is India since the departure of the man
oa the sth Marsh, 1866 :
Bombay—Liesteaant Gillespie, Adjutant Sappers aid
Misers, at Poona on the 11th April.
Madre—Captain C. B. Storms, 23rd Rest. Light Is-
&any, at Nagpore, on the 20th April.