The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-28 00:00:00

INDIA AND CHINA.

By the arrival of the Calcutta mail we (7 inzes)
have received our private correspondence and files
of papers from Calcutta to the 23d April, Hong•
Bong to the 15th April, and Shanghai to the 2d o
April.

INDIA.
The following is the letter of our Calcutta cor
respondent :

"CALCUTTA, April 23.
" The Viceroy and the whole of the principal
members of Government left Calcutta last week
for Simla. Three months' experience of the new

rule has proved what immense advantages are pos-
sessed by a Governor-General who has that know-
ledge of the languige and the people of the country
which alone can enable him to begin his work al

once. Sir John Lawrence has not lost a day since
he has been here. Too quantity of arrears that
have been cleared up in every office almost exceeds
belief. Departments bad done their work just
whets and how they pleased for so long a time, that

when a searching supervision came they were un
prepared to meet it, and the sharp rebukes of the
Viceroy startled all the sinecurists in India into
unwonted activity. This hes been a part of Sir
John Lawrence's work, but that work has not
stopped here. lie has originated or pressed on some
social measures of great importance. The Sanitary
Commission, presided over by Mr. Strachey,
busying itself with the condition of towns
and cantonments, and its efforts will in all pro-
bability add much to the comfort of the soldier ie
India, no less than of the general population. The
attempt to mitigate that great evil which sends a
third of our army into the hospitals, by the adop-
tion of a strict system of supervision, can scarcely
be otherwise than successful wider the cautious
regulations recently decided upon by the Supreme
received attention. The greatest—at th
Council. Minuter social meters than these have
the year nearly the only—variation in the mono-
tony of Calcutta life, is the outbreak of a fire.
is season of
Somebody sees the thatch burning upon a native
finite screaming and yelling
hnt, and goes off to fetch the engine. With
coolies drag it along,
and by by the time the fire has burnt itself out, and
destroyed probably a hundred huts, the engine is
got safely to the spot, and then pulled back again
with the same ceremonies. The performance has
resen
been repeated very often latterly, and at one large
fire at Kidderpore the Viceroy was pt with the
Lieut.-Governor of Bengal. There have, no daunt,
been many things in Calcutta which surprise a man
r
who has never indulged in apathetic listlessness
himself, and never allowed it in others so far as he
could prevent it ; and the way
in which a whole
street is burnt down here with hardly an effort to
save it could scarcely have been the leas( of these
surprises to Sir John Lawrence. Dr. Hathaway is
resolved to organize some better system of dealing
with these accidents, and he is also trying to estab-
lish a Humane Society, and institution for the
relief of European vagrants, of whom there are
large numbers in the Presidency towns. Sir John
Lawrence's last public act in Calcutta was to lay
the foundation-atone of a
officials know to
Sailors' Home. These
about his work. As a
the thoroughness with which the Viceroy has set
are not great matters, but they serve to illustrate
their coat, there is scarcely a petty detail of the
Government machinery which. he has not personally
examined. It is not at all likely to prove a com-
fortable administration for that class of publ:c
servants who consider that in drawing their salaries
country can fairly
they have done all that the
ex-
pect of them. good many

CHINA '
We take the foLowiog summary of news from
the Overland China Mail of the 16th April :
• I
The Taeping rebellions still the chief subject of in-
terest in China. In our last overland. summary we spoke
expresed their intention and
and Kintang. The announce-.
of the surrender of Liyang
bad surrendered
.was premature.
meat that the 'atter city
The garrison, it is true, had
willingness to surrender, but, unfortunately, the Im-
arrison employed while Gordon
perialist forces who were
to have kept Chang-chow-
foo in check and its g
operated against liintangt
fell back upon Woosih three
days before Kintang WO att ickod. That city was, there-
fore, strongly reinforced from Chang-chow-foo very shortly
before Col, Gordon appeared in front of
it, The rebel force
thus thrown into a city which was about to have surrendered
consisted of men ft ona the Two Kwang (Kwangtun and
Kwangsi), and are the most hardened of all the Taeping
troops. These are what may be termed the original rebels, and
are the men who made all the mischief, They are brave,
remorseless, and cruel beyond anything ever recorded of
their opponents. Colonel Gordon's force has witnessed the
most bitter evidences of this in children slain and young
girls shamefully mutilated.
From Japan we have no definite news of importance.
The Tycoon and Mikado are said
es to be
e on good
terms, of
the foreign question still engag th serious attenti' on
native statesmen.
The intelligence from Shanghai is purely local. The
steamer Tsatlee has been restored to her owners, Messrs.
Russell and Co., and the pirates who took her have been
committed to gaol; those belonging to American kids-
t diction have already made their escape from prison, a fact
which outs a stigma ppou 'ate United States' gaol anthori-