Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-12-26 00:00:00

Sicily. News from Sicily has not yet been received,
as the telegraphic communication itself has been
destroyed.
We have two days' later news from New York,
by the Fulton. The policy of the Washington
Government in Kansas had been strongly assailed
in the Senate, and the free-sot party in Kansas
itself had taken up an energetic position. All the
New York banks had resumed specie payments,
and the resumption was expected to become
general. A protracted guerilla warfare with the
Mo: mons was thought to be inevitable, unless
large reinforcements could be sent against them.
News from Alexis() announce the repression of
the reactionary forces, and continued supremacy of
C omo n for t.

How to re-construct our Indian army is an
important question. It already occupies the
attention of the London Times and its corres-
pondents. As Christian conquerors, we take
an immense responsibility on our heads. The
punishment of offenders, civil and military, is a
paramount duty which accompanies dominant
power. The peaceable and well-disposed
require this for safety, and, fortunately, we have
in British India a large native population who are
strongly attached to our rule, and it is necessary
to discriminate between the mutinous Sepoy and
the loyal and trustworthy }Endo.. Of the
150,000,000 of native Indians under our flag,
not more than 200,000 can be said to have taken
up arms in the existing revolt. The true origin
of this lamentable event has yet to be disclosed,
and the revelation appears to be at hand. An
unhappy sun-stricken Anglo-Asiatic, who, in
the frenzy of a coup de sang, styles himself
A Soldier," has written to the London Times
a letter, four columns long, which brings to
light some very singular facts. This production
appeared in our cotemporary's columns on the
19th instant, and its author commences by
recommending, among other things, that the
future army of India should be "an agent of
"civilisation and religion, and a nucleus of the
" partisans of our rule." These are certainly
most desirable objectF, and it appears, from the
writers own words, that the Sepoys, previous to
the mutiny, were the best troops which could
have been selected for his objects ; for, he tells
us, that—" It has been well remarked of the old
" Sepoys, that they were, in quarters and in their
"ordinary duties, so well behaved that it was
"impossible to lick them into shape by discipline.
"It was all a level surface, but we had no hold
" upon them." There could, surely, have been
no better agents of civilisation and religion "
than we had in these troops, and why they
ceased to be the nucleus of the partisans of
British rule in India, must yet be sifted and
made public.
In the meantime, " A Soldier," after naming
every native tribe in Hindostan and its.
neighbouring countries from which we may raise
an army to supply the place of Sepoys, gives his
preference to the Sikhs, and the Aboriginal
tribes of Southern India, who now compose the
mercenary levees employed by the Nizara. The
national characteristics and personal qualifications
of these two, especially favoured races, are very
elaborately deseribedby their zealous patron