The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-30 00:00:00

windows has just been completed in the new garrison church
at Woolwich. One is dedicated to the memory of the late
Brigadier-General Crofton, who commanded the Royal Ar •
tillery in the late expeditionary force despatched to China;
and the other to that of the late Colonel Charles Bingham,
Deputy-Adjt.-Gen. Royal Artillery.
The following appointments were made yesterday at the
Admiralty :—Capt. C. W. Hope, to the Brisk ; Commander
G. L. Sulivan, to the St George, additional for service in
the Coastguard; Lieut. C. L. Oxley, to the Wolverene ;
11. W. S- L. Montgomery, nominated to a naval cadetship ;
and W. L. Norcock, paymaster to the Hastings.

The last Mohammedan Conspiracy in India.

(From the llomcward Hail, August 29.)
By the previous mail we learned that the appeal of the
11 Mohammedans who were convicted some months since
before Sir Herbert Edwards, the Session Judge of Umballa,
of conspiracy to overthrow British rule in India, was being
proceeded with in the Court of the Judicial Commissioner
of the Punjab, at Lahore. We have now before us the
judgment from which the appeal was made, but its extra-
ordinary length—extraordinary even for an Indian official
document—and the number of points embraced in it pos-
sessing no interest, unless merely in so far as they contri-
bute to bring their guilt home to the prisoners—have led
us to weave the essential facts into a compact narrative, by
way of indicating how conspiracies of this sort are got up,
and with what impunity and for what a length of time they
are occasionally permitted to flourish by the authorities in
India,

In May, 1863, Ghuzzun Khan, a
Sikh sergeant of
mounted police, who during the mutinies had deserved well
of the British raj, fell in with four travellers, apparently on
a journey from Umballa down towards 37elhi. Tho keen-
eyed sergeant at once detected in them a resemblance to the
frontier with the Sittaua Hindustani& By way of testing
hs prisonerssusp c i
ei captured r ed
he beynot
entered
d troopsin their skirmishes on the
into
conversation with them,
and soon discovered that they were on an embassy from
Syud Abdoolah—the leader of the Mulkah Sittanees—to
his friends in Bengal. Relying on the importance of his
discoveries, Ghuzzun Khan deemed himself justified in
arresting the travellers, and having seuc them before a
magistrate—Mr C.,Stephen—requested that they might be
summoned to state what he knew about them. This re-
quest was unheeded by the magistrate who discharged the
prisoners, merely recording on the back of the report sent
to him by Ghuzzun Khan, that it is plain the men were
merely travellers." Had the magistrate taken the trouble
to inquire, he would have found that they were not merely
travellers, but emissaries of sedition as well.

The Sikh sergeant, naturally hurt at the slight attention
paid to him by the magistrate, was thereby impelled to in-
vestigate the matter still further; and about two months
afterwards commissioned his son in Eusofzye, to attach
himself to the Mulkah Sittanees, and find out who and
where their friends were in British territory. The son,
Feroz Khan by name, seems to have performed his
father's commission admirably; he remained with the Sit-
tanees ten days, and even accompanied them in an attack
upon Kubbul, a village on the left bank of the Indus,
owned by a chief having friendly relations with the British,
and who was consequently obnoxious to the fanatics of
Mulkah. Here he left them, but not before having dis-
covered that their great friend was Mohammed Jaffir, of
Thanesur, a pleaderle. the Umballa courts,a stamp-seller.and
petition writer, who added to those avocations the more im-
portant one of agent for the transmission of men and
materiel to the fanatics in the hills. The Sikhs, father and
son, now appeared before Captain Moseley, and urged him
to test the correctness of the information they had thus ob-
tained in regard to the doings of the Umballa pleader.
At length, on Dec. 12, a descent was made by the police
upon Jollies house at Thanesur, and his books and papers
seized. He was arrested himself a few days afterwards,
after having led the police a chase of some 200 miles.
Among his papers was found a sort of autobiography, from
which, as well as from the testimony of witnesses; it was
found that Jaffir had fought against us at Delhi, in the
character of a ghazee, that is a Mohammedan pledged to do
or die in the cause of Islam. Jaffir's papers also furnished
a clue to the other conspirators, all of whom were seized;
but the ringleaders, Mohammed Shuffee, of Umballa, and
Yahiya Ali, a man of great influence in Patna, need only be
mentioned here. The importance of the role played by
Mohammed Shuffee we can appreciate when we come to
consider the fact that he held the meat contract for the
supply of the European troops, not only at -Umballa, but
also at Jullundur, Lahore, Mooltan, Dens Ismael Khan,
Sealkote, Itawul Pindee, Attock, and Nowshera; and by
means of his agents in these places was able to forward to
the hills men and money without attrac,ing suspicion.
But the two Umballa conspirators, Mohammed Jaffir and
Shuffee, seem merely to have contented themselves with
the part of agents to their more active brethren of Patna—
whence emissaries were sent to all parts of Bengal
to preach the Crescentade, or Mohammedan holy
war, the converts or recruits being forwarded in the first
instance to Patna and thence on the way to Delhi and Um-
balla to the hills. Ono of these emissaries we will take as a
sample of the others. Oosman Khan, native of 24-Pergun-
nabs, while in Jossore, received money from the Nazir of
the Judge's Court to go upon a mission among the Moham-
medans to collect money, and to induce all likely men to go
on a crescentade against tho infidels. This mission, judeing
from the glowing terms in which the preacher himself de-
scribes it, must have been an eminently successful one.
" The Mohammedans," he says, " in this part of the coun-
try, seem to have an excellent idea of the purpose for which
I have came ; and are obedient"—which latter clause of the
sentence may be interpreted, " are eager to rebel." "There
is nothing," he says further on, 44 to be compared to this
sort of life. From 25 to 30 men join
me in prayers," Lc, in
sedition, "five times a day. This is the result of my having
undertaken God's work, otherwise I am not deserving of so
much distinction." We may mention, in passing, that this
preacher of rebellion saved himself from a less pleasant
distinction by turning Queen's evidence. And not only did
he employ himself in procuring recruits, but also in collect-
ing money, of which he was enabled to remit a goodly sum
to the central propaganda in Patna.

After a time spent in this pious war, he bethought of pay-
ing a visit to his employers. And here we may as well
admit our readers to a glimpse of the way in which these
worthies carried on their business at headquarters; Cowman
Khan and others of his fellow-preachers helping us to the
description.
In the Sadik poor street of Patna stand a group of houses
which includes the residence of Ahrancloola, member of the
Municipal Committee ; of his relative, Yahiya Ali, the
High Priest; of another conspirator, Abdool Raheem ; and
also embraces the Mohammedan Saar or hospice, with
its place of prayer and its garden. There is a public en-
trance from the street, and between the houses there is
private communication—showing upon what close terms
the inmates lived. Here Syud Abdoolah-leader of the
Sittanees in the late war on the Eusufzye fronded.
--drew his inspiration ; and here until lately were pre'
served the commendatory letters of Syud Ahmed—a fanatic
above proof—who disturbed the Sikh frontier from 1824
to 1830, and whose followers are still numeronst
especially in Patna, and generally in Bengal. And it Was
among these that the cireseentade preachers appear to bays
gained by persuading them that it was
"good
witness
the &tato of the
Syud "in the hills beyond Pindee." At all events, BIOS
r, recruits,tog 0
and
the days of Syud Ahmed these hottsee in the street of
Sadikpoor would appear to have been a hot-bed of Sedi-
tion as well as of Wahabee fanaticism.
moatso u

During the years 1861162.63, this Mohammedan hospice
was the tendezvous of pilgrims from all parts of neogal ;
it has beer, stated in evidence that as many as 200 were
there at a time. In the fictitious language of the con-
spirators, these pilgrims, or recruits, were called 6‘ mer-
chants;" but it has been recorded that the " merchants"
wero always rejected when found to be too old. During
their stay at the hospice-.-which generally lasted four or
fivn, andedclaYi h received food, instruction of a certain
kind, were preached to several times a day by the
High Priest—who, besides preaching, seems also to have
had an immense correspondence on his hands. The re-
cruits, so soon as they effervesced to a fitting pitch of fana-
ticism, were despatched in kafilas, or companies of from five
to ten men, in the direction of the north-west. Bat not
empty-handed. Each man received his travelling ex-
penses; and the more devoted ones—those whose faith was
looked upon as impregnable—had gold mohurs and
hoondees for thousands of rupees quilted into their jackets
—to be transferred at Umballa to the meat contractor, and
by him forwarded to the bills " where the Patna people
are." By this means, in the course of a year or so, the
Mohammedans remitted not leas than 410,000 to the
frontier. How the money was obtained, we need not
marvel, if we consider that Oosman Khan and the other
crescentade apostles had no difficulty in sending to Patna
sums of 150 rupees at a time.
How these companies of Bengalees—there seem to have
been often as many as two or three kafias despatched in a
week—made the long journey between Patna and the
Punjab frontier without ettracing observation, is suffi-
ciently remarkable—but it will appear even more so when
we come to find that some of them publicly preached
sedition in the towns and villages as they
went. We are
treated to a picture of a well-to-do Mussulman from
Jessore, jogging north-westward on his own steed, Hudi-
bras-like. and going out of his way, whenever he felt so
inclined, to infuse his own spirit into his con-religionists.
This worthy put up at all the comfortable serail ; he was
to be met—accompanied by a dozen prospective martyrs
for Islam—on the way from Thanesur to Umballa—he was
to be seen quietly loitering on the Anarkullee Sergi at
Lahore, and going thence in his palkee-gharree to the
frontier. S'me perhaps may he disposed to think
that Sir Herbert Edwardes rises out of the equable