The Express.
London, England, 1847-03-12 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, FRIDAY EVENING, MAT CH f2,' 1847.

founded, . u the immediate pretext of the in-
surrection cossi.ts in the claims of a turbulent chief:
Lain to a forfeited Zemindary, the course or police
which has brought the government into colli-ion with
the Khond tribes end their neighbours, and the cha-
racter of tkose tribes, are sufficiently remarkable to
justify a less hasty notice than would be afforded by
• paragraph in our Indian dispatch.
It would probably be difficult to persuade en ordi-
nary person that the Madras government, by its
agents, acting sometimes independently and some-
times under the direct control of the Supreme Govern-
ment of India, has for the last ten or eleven years
been devoting great labour and expense to an enttr. I,
philanthropic object, in the pursuit of which it is now
engaged in a disinterested war. The transactions to
which we refer are strikingly illustrative of the best
characteristic of our rule in India, the consciousness
of a mission to suppress anarchy and barbarism, di-
rected by a practical instinct which distinguishes the
limits which must bound the general principle of nun-
interference with national customs.
- •

---
The Khonds are a wild nation of highlanders, inha-
biting a mountainous district on the coast of the Bay
of Bengal, about 400 miles to the south-west of Cal-
cutta, and nearly double that distance from Madras,
but included within the limits of the latter presidency.
Till about eleven years ago this country and its inha-
bitants were little known. Though apparently of
1 Hindoo blood, the 'mountaineers are free from the
restrictions of caste, and generally indifferent to the
distinctions of food and other Brahminical observances.
Within their own territory they were practically inde-
pendent, though they acknowledged some feudal
relations to the Zemindars of the low country, which
adjoins their hills. We have no room to describe their '
general character and habits ; but it seems that they'
are in general an estimable, though rude, population,
simple in, their habits, tolerab:y peaceable
amongst themselves, and, after their peculiar
fashion religious. It was their religion, indeed,
which brought them into collision with the English
authorities; and paradoxical as it may seem, after
what we have said of the present contest, it is on our
part both a breach of relieious toleration, and a direct
attack on the freedom of trade.
_ _ .

It was, we believe, in the year 1836 that the Eng-
lish authorities at Vizianagur and Gamjam first be-
came aware that the Khoods were in the habit of
offering human sacrifices ; and that their lowland
neighbours supplied them with victims. The Indian
government is justly called the most tolerant in the
world; bat it seems no more to have thought of
including the Khond superstition within its range
of toleration, than of permitting the far more
atrocious worship of KALI by the Thugs. lf,
indeed, the tribes had been contented to
provide victims among themselves, it is pro-
bable that they might have remained unmolested
in their worship, at least till they became more
directly subject to our authority ; but the practice of
purchasing or kidnapping children from the low-
lenders for their sacrifices, made it important to
attempt the immediate suppression of their revolting
custom. Many plans were proposed for the purpose.
Some officers attempted, with partial success, to
reason the chiefs into the abandonment of human
sacrifices; in some cases the meriahs, or victims, were
rescued by military force, and some of the kidnappers
who supplied the +aerial* market were tried for the
offence. One of them who had undertaken to

a victim, and had provided one whom the authorities
rescued, was obliged to substitute his own daughter
in his place, and the girl was actually sacrificed. The
dealer was tried, but escaped through a wonderfully
inappropriate adherence to English maxims as to
the strict rules of evidence. Captain MAC-
rHERsoN, who has for some years resided
in the Khond country under the orders of
the supreme government, has displayed extraordinary
ability in combating the obnoxious practice by alter-
nations of persuasion and force. Some of the Bis-
sayes, or chiefs of the country, seem to have
honestly conformed to his wishes ; others have either
temporised or directly opposed him, as circumstances
allowed. The head of the religious party, SAM
BMISAYE, seems to have derived a new pleasure in
arranging meriah sacrifices, from the knowledge that
he was deceiving or defying the English agent. The
1 contests between the canning and zeal of SAM, and
the sagacity and decision of Captain MACPHERSON,
would sf themselves form an interesting narrative.
i On the whole, we believe his success has been con-
, siderable, though incomplete ; but a strong feeling of
I dissatisfaction with the interference of the English
I has spread through the tribes, and the pressure of the
Seikh war last year diverted Lord HARDING a's atten-
tints from the danger of an impending insurrection.
The rebellion is for the present confined among the
Khonds to some of the border tribes, acting in con-
junction with the inhabitants of some of the lowland
districts, who, though not practising the Khond re-
ligion, have a commercial interest in its maintenance,
as producers of the victims required. It is in this
point of view that our arms are engaged as we ob-
served above, in the suppression of free trade. Among
our bitterest enemies are some vagabond and disrepu-
table tribes, neither Khonds nor lowlanders, who
have hitherto enjoyed the carrying trade and broker-
age ,as purchasers or kidnappers of victims. With
all our regard for the principles of political economy,
we cannot but hope that this branch of industry will
be forcibly checked, and that the supply of nieriahs
will no longer be regulated by the demand.
With the Khonds themselves, though the determi-
nation to put down their sacrifices is justifiable and
praiseworthy, we have much more sympathy than
with the tribes who supply them with victims. They
all belong to the landed interest, their principal deity
is the Earth, and the object of their sacrifices is gene-
rally an abundant harvest. It is not allowed to offer
either a native or a prisoner of war; the victim must
be bought for money, either from the patents or from ,
kidnappers, and generally comes among them as a '
child. It is kindly brought up, and lives among the
natives on terms of friendship and equality, till the
priests declare that the barrenness of the soil requires
to be removed by consecrated blood. Then at a
solemn festival, in the midst of hymns, of which the
burden is the offering is ours, we bought kim with a
price,' the priest passes the sacrificial knife across the
meriah's throat, and the whole population rush in, cut
him to pieces, and carry off each a piece of flesh to his
own field, as a charm to ensure a good crop. We have
often thought of the use which some of the Learn
orators might have made of this system of "doing
justice to the farmer," literally at the price of human
blood. Sometimes, however, the Khonds rise in their
supplications above the immediate prospects of the
harvest to wider political considerations. The earth-
goddess or deity to whom human victims are offered,
has, ameng other attributes, the remarkable title of ,
" God of things as they are." '• Oh, God of things
as they are," so runs one of their hymns, "let us
be as our fathers were—neither better nor worse,
but as our fathers were,* and so the victim dies, and
if their prayer is not heard, their wish has thus far
been accomplished.
They are now receiving lessons in another doc-
trine, the religion of things as they ought to be. We
hop, the government may, by a judicious combina-
tion of severity and force, succeed in abolishing their
obnoxious rites without driving them into permanent
hostility, or expelling them from the lands they cul-
tivate so carefully. The Goomsur insurrection is
possibly by this time suppressed. A conviction of
the irresistible power of the government will lead the
Khonds all the more readily to believe in its wisdom
and to follow its advice.

MALTA—By the Tague arrived at the Motherbank
yesterday, brines! the Southampton portion of the India
mail, brought by Weghorn's express, we have received papers
from Malta to Feb. 19, and from Gibraltar to the 3rd of the
present month. The Malta papers are occupied with the
report of a eourt-martial held on the Ist ult. on the ease of
Captain H. Daniell, of the 42nd, who was charged with
appearing at the mem in a state of intoxication and impro-
perly dressed, and with having improperly imprisoned the
surgeon of the regiment. The court, after a deliberation of
nearly two days acquitted the prisoner of the charge of
drunkenness, but found him guilty of wearing an undress
coat, and sentenced him to be admonished by the Lieutenant-
general.