The Express.
London, England, 1861-09-10 00:00:00

SIUTIYVIA.

Tale event% lUCBaI AND rovvar. Mews. ternohls
and II I. r —The Ertel Meehan —tale on TIIK PAanltEnn.
—71 IE tIltrAT I,lllt LINDIE4.—To nertml• with the
thnl A..te 4 AUS WY.—thanes at Ultieset f.

sieswAyas AT LONDON DIRTOOL

TUN Da 11..... Aftrilolllll. Al 430.
TO Misauv —Mai& Afteuses.

LONDON, TUESDAY. SEPT. 10.

TO OUR READERS.

SPORTING INTELLIGENCE.

A !Ain edition of the E.rpreai i. publiubed every
eveni:g during the racing season, coutaiking the
results of the day's rain.

Toe trial of the Rev. J. Lulu, a miisionary
of the Church of England at Calcutta, is so singu-
lar in its origin, incidents, and issues, that we
need only exhibit its more salient features to
obtain for it the curious ►ttention of our readers.
Not that it is in any emu likely to fail of securing
prominence among the events of the day. In
truth the strong feeling it is certain to call forth in
this country as it has done in India makes us de-
sire to notice it before the facts are hopelessly
beclouded by prejudice and passion.
Alt who take an intend iu the politics of our
Indian Empire are aware that among the Indigo
Planters of Lower Bengal a very bitter feeling
of hostility has grown up against the missionaries
who have so powerfully contributed to bring the
grievances of the Ityota under the notice of the
Government and people of England, and to obtain
protection for the native cultivators. We cannot
permit ourselves to speak of the planters as a class
without acknowledging, with the best friends of
the native. both in the civil service and among
the missionaries, that many of them are men of the
highest integrity, lovers of justice, protectors of
the oppressed, wielding the prestige of a superior
race to benefit the natives by scattering around
them the blessings of Christian civilization. But
others are what energetic and unscrupulous Britons,
bent on making a fortune, too often become, when
they find themselves in contact with a feebler race,
and exempt from the restraints of home opinion and
home authority. The Indigo Planters occupied a
not very intelligible position at the trial of Mr. Loin'.
The reverend defendant was charged, tint, with
libelling Mr. Watrza Barrr, the editor of the
COl.-iitfis Englishman, and next with libelling the
Planters as a body. But no planters' names
appeared on the bill, and no particular planters were
asserted to have been referred to in the libelous
matter. However, the counsel for Mr. Barrr,
the only personal prosecutor, informed the court
in opening the case that the prosecution had been
instituted at the desire and with the entire concur-
rence of the Landholders' Association of British
India, and the general body of indigo planters.
Indeed, unless we assume that the Planters felt
the deepest interest in the conviction and con-
demnation of Mr. LuNc, tho prosecution insti•
toted by Mr. Barn would be wholly inexplicable.
For, that the editor of an Anglo-Indian newspaper,
whose whole existence stands in opinion, should
for his own sake commence a prosecution fur
libel, is a supposition too absurd to be tolerated.
From first to last, then, this a Planter's prose-
cution.

Mr. Losin's offence was that he had canoed to
be published and circulated an English tran,lation
of • Bengali drama entitled Nil Durvaii,
" The Mirror of Indigo Planting," which
had been scenically represented in Bengal, and
which, hawked about as • chap-book, had obtained
an immense circulation among the nativist. Very
few English readers would have patience to read
the translation of this drama to the end. It is
diffuse, and its woeful langour is insupportable. It
is unnecessary to say that as • picture of the
Indigo system drawn from the Ryota' point of
view, it would have great popularity among the
Bengalese. For the same reason it would be certain
not to be • faithful representation of the life
depicted. The harsher aspects of the indigo system
would inevitably be exaggerated, strews would be
laid upon grievances with which Europeans could
have no sympathy, and differences of English and
liindoo conventional social morality would be
sure to bo represented to the disadvantage of our
countrymen. But in proportion as it was all
this, it would be a " mirror", not indeed of
indigo planting, but of the native mind.
Of course it was urged by counsel for the planters
that Mr. Luso's motive in publishing an English
version of this pamphlet was • malicious desire to
vilify and slander their body without a cause.
Mr. Lora protested that he published it simply
as an illustration of native feeling. It is, in
fact, well known at Calcutta that, for the last
ten years, he has, as a missionary, made it his
especial care to study the vernacular press of India,
both as it is a reflection of the opinions and feel-
ings of the native people, and as it may be made
the mesas of working on them for their improve-
ment, and his compilations and catalogues of native
literature have been very useful to the friends of
minions and education in India. Owing to hie
exertions in bringing the chsreeter of current
native literature under the notice of the Govern-
ment, slaw prohibiting the sale of obscene books,
which is said to have worked well, was passed by
the Legislative CounciL He had also • main peat
In the establishment of an Bilacutiim f:azctte in
Bengal, which has been the vehicle for tie diffusion
of sound information 'among the native population.
kr. LINO% weed. 111111 :
Wise sew enewieninr weeks */ special interest appear. I
,„,, ki jibs wig si mass Om, se 14111.. of the native
Mad, le laiwaseseiss wissaners, sad goveroneut one
wiliest Menefee to the ennestnew at the easements of
W weeks, in eater Yet each pannees way °beery@ the est,
rest at popular feeling. Thee ekes two denim works is
defame of Hinduism' appeared about two year ago in
Calenue, I swat antics of them, and wade eves,
wissiewery is Clalestts purchased copies. With the
wow view d losing knows the lesdesey of the
mule meek I have inserted from time to time in the
Harkens sewapapsr 4rtieles wNtid " The Rpirit of
the Native Press ;" and, with the woe object,
I be eght to the notice of several parties last
year a Ilespli drama called the " Nil Darpan," which,
though lis:Alv eulecreth appeered to give the native view at
the Wash el the indigo phinting system. The disputes had