The Express.
London, England, 1857-08-08 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST R.

Tun composition. sled &erecter of our Oriental
army are known from history. Throughout the
anarchical states of the list there are everywhere
to be found bands of robbers, or chiefs like our
feudal hereto, who, with their dependents, ate little
better than robbers. War on a small scale is waged
incessantly by all these amociations. Every now and
then there arises some individual of this amiuble
fraternity endowed with greater skill of combination
and more ambitious views. He attaches to his for-
tunes a number of minor leaders, organises a more
numerous following, extends his operations over a
wider district. The attention of Government is called
to hie excesses ; troops are marched against him
and defeated. His name becomes famous. A state
crisis is precipitated by some Court intrigue; this
leader of banditti is courted by one of the aspirants
to the throne; his weight thrown into the scale de-
cides the struggle; and the bandit chief becomes
a general. It may be that he remains contented
with a subordinate position ; it may be that in the
death throes of an expiring dynasty he sets the
crown upon his own head ; in either case a numerous
army rallies round him. So long as he lives, or is
prosperove, this engine of his ambition con-
tinues efficient. If he dies, or meets with
a series of reverses, it melts away. So long
as the army retains its organisation it is the real
government of the region it occupies. The nominal
sovereign is but a mere shadow of authority ; even
its real commander is obliged to tolerate the licence
of the soldiers. The mercantile dames in the cities,
the cultivators in the rural districts, are at the mercy
of the soldiery. The army is the one dominant
power. The army includes not merely all varieties
of fighting men, but all the speculating and de-
bauched hordes of camp followers who attend it,
To belong to the army or its followers is, as it were,
a patent of nobility. Such are Oriental armies
among the Native States. Such were the
armies of Hindustan when first a few detached bodies
of Sowers or Sepoys were enrolled fur the defence
of our various Factories in India. Out of such ma-
terials the Company's army long continued to be
recruited. A few English officers were attached to
regiments composed of native soldiers ;aid native
officers, in order to impart to them a smattering of
European discipline. But of late years the number
of European officers has been increased; the native
officers have been reduced to an entirely subor-
dinate position ; and the native army of the
East India Company has been cast in an
European mould. The external form of the
army has been completely Europeanised, but bee the
character of the component ingredients been
changed? To help as in the attempt to answer this
question, let to give a glance at the Bengal army—
the late Bengal army.

In 1833 the Bengal native army numbered in all
83,946 mem. Of these, 70,079 were infantry. Of
the composition of the cavalry, the returns are silent,
bat the infantry wee thus claasified—Brahmins,
26,893 ; Bajpoots, 27,335; Hindoos of inferior
costes, 13,761 , htahometans, 12,699 ; Christian', 1 ,1113;
Sadie, 30. The far greater number of recruits for this
army were obtained, not from the Company's terri-
taries,lsot ham the territories of a foreign prince—from
Order. They were either men in whose familiar the
profession of soldier was hereditary, or young,
daring idlers who preferred the trade of arms
to regular industry. They have been and are pre-
cisely the same materials as those of which the
armies of the East have been composed from time
immemorial. Their object in enlisting was to obtain
a position which would enable them to gratify their
irregular appetitee—to lord it over the industrial
elsaaes.

The checks upon this domineering class have been
feeb!e and futile in the extreme. To each regiment there g
have been attached, nominally, _3 English officers ;
but of these, on an average, six have been absent on
staff or political appointments, and more upon
sick leave. Of tbs remainder, some have possessed
bat an imperfect knowledge of the native languages 4
--almost all, nursed and strengthened in English
habits, have had little intercourse with their soldiers.
The very regulations of the service have aimed at
reducing to a minimum the personal influence of the
officer over his soldiers. The native soldiery have been
left entirely to themselves; they have been influenced
by a public opinion of their own. They had aims and
aspirations of which their English officers did not
even dream. Nor is this true of the soldiers
alone. The camp-followers of an Indian army are
to the fighting men in the proportion of five to one.
These followers have been the parasites, the subser-
vient tools, It. of the officers than of the native sol-
diers. They are when required the obedient minis-
ters to their vices ; unwatched, uncontrolled, the
two crass serve to corrupt each other.
A letter, eigned " A tion-oombstaat,"; which
the Doily News published yesterday, throws a
startling light upon the character and con-
duct of or native soldiers in BMA U.
tells r that when on the line of much the
8.,. " are in the habit of demand* and re-