Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-09-26 00:00:00

ESCAPE OF LAY-NUNS AT MEERUT.

The Courrier de Lyon gives the following account of
the dangers incurred by several French lay-nuns in India
during the late disturbances :—The religious establishment
of Jesus-et-Marie de Fourviere had several of its sister-
hood imperilled at Meerut, Delhi, Sealcote, acd Agra by
the Indian insurrection. It is only by the last mail that
intelligence has been received respecting them in letters
written to their superior, and which show that a portion
of them at least have escaped. All these holy woman
were at the heat of schools for young girls, English and
native. Those who were at Meerut succeeded in escaping
through the conflict, murderers, and conflag .ation with a
part ot their pupils, some English ladies, and about fifty
males, officers and civilians, tea valley in the mountains of
Thibet, where they are, it app are, in tolerable security,
for the party, being well armed, is strong enough to defend
against the insurgents the defile leading to their asylum.
The flight from Sealkote was marked by m st dramatic
incidents The evening before the rising, some of the
natives, through gratitu le for she attention and kindness
which the sisters had always shown to their children, came
secretly to inform them they would do well to leave the
place as promptly as possible with their pupils. as the
insurrection was to commence the next morning at break
of day, and the insurgent, had resolved to k.ll every
European. The sisters at once procurcd cars, and loafed
them with their properly and with their youngest pupils,
whose weakness would have retarded their precipitate
flight. Then profiting by the shades of n;ght., they left the
town for a firt so-ne begues distant, where they hoped to
find refege. Unfortunately whether it was that the
warning given them was too late, or that the fugitives had
not harried on with sufficient rapidity, or that the natives
had advanced the moment of the insurrecdon, the sisters
were overtsken, when about half way, by a troop of the
insurgents, who on finding their convent abandoned had
pursued them The poor sisters, on seeing this horde of
miscreants approaching, abandoned their cars and
baggage in the middle of the road to be pillaged, and
hurried away t m take refuge in an isolated house which
stood near. But their pursuers soon surrounded the
building, and bursting in murdered, in presence of the
poor sisters and the children, several English persons,
women and men, who had also hurried to the house for
safety. They then rushed at the sisters, and with horri: le
imprecations threatened to make them and their pupils
share the same fate, if they did not at once declare where
their property was to be found. The unfortunate women
protested that they had nothing in the world but what
they, had left in the cars on the high road, and that they
willingly gave up that property. As, however, other
pillagers 'had already carried off whatever was prec ous
feem the cars the insurgents in the h-tuse were about to
execute their threat of killing every human being in 'the
building, when a voice cried out that the public treasures
had been found. They then rushed from the house to
obtain their share in the booty, and the sisters, without
loosing a moment, placed the youngest children on their
shoulders, and taking the where by the hand, proceeded
as rapidly as they could towards the fort, which they at
last reached and obtained a shelter in the midst of other
fugitives of every age and condition. It is impossible to
praise too highly the devotedness of these poor women,
who risked without hesitation their own lives to save those
of the children confided to their care.