The Sun.
London, England, 1854-10-02 00:00:00

THE OVERLAND MAIL

We have received our papers and correspon-
dence in anticipation of the Overland Mail. The
dates are Bombay, Aug. 30 ; Calcutta, Aug. 19 ;
Singapore, Aug. 15 ; China, Aug. 6 ; Australia,
July 26.
(From the Overland Bombay Times, Aug. SO.)
SIIMMARY.—The past month has been singularly
barren of intelligence ; such events as we have to
• chronicle are peaceful and auspicious. The electric
telegraph betwixt Bombay and Calcutta, via the
north-west provinces, is now nearly completed ; the
line betwixt this and Lahore is so altogether. In
the beginning of the week we had intelligence by
wire in one day over the former of these lines, the
transit of the mail occupying ten days, and we
trust that the India House will receive, by the 24th
of Sept., tidings despatched this day from the Go-
vernor-General, via Trieste, in 26 days. So soon
as the wire is laid down from the European to the
African shore, and so on to Alexandria and Suez,
and a fast boat placed on the Bombay line, telegra-
phic intelligence will always be transmitted betwixt
India and England in twelve days, or in half the
time taken up by the mail at its fastest. The lower
portion of the Bengal Railway was opened for pas-
sengers on the 15th; no formal inauguration of the
line has yet taken place. A school of industrial art
has been commenced at Calcutta, on the same gene-
ral principle as that on which those at home are
conducted, but with delays and difficulties to con-
tend with inconceivable to Englishmen at home.
A committee has been appointed by the Bom-
bay Government with a view of bringing into
existence a somewhat similar establishment at
Bombay, Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy having under-
taken to pay the interest of 10,000/. or 5001. a
year, to support a portion of the pupils attending
it, government constructing the buildings, and
meeting all the charges of its maintenance. The
plan is nearly identical with that of the Polytech-
nic Institute projected in 1843, with this difference
in favour of the latter—that it was meant to be
entirely popular, and to impose no charge on go-
vernment save that of superintendence, and which
was suffered to fall to the ground through public
neglect. The establishment of an economic museum
has also been taken up by government, and with
the most moderate amount of exertion may easily
be brought into existence; this having formed a
part of the original Polytechnic scheme. It is un-
derstood that the system of educational supervision
as hitherto prevailing under education boards is
to be extinguished, and a minister of public in-
struction appointed instead. The alteration would
be an important one could jobbing in patronage
be put down ; but an appointment of this kind, to
be good for anything, must be liberally requited,
and whatever is so in India, where duty cannot be
specifically defined, is sure in a few years to become
a sinecure, or have its work vicariously performed,
or to be passed through interest into the hands of
incompetents, the home branch of the adminis-
tration setting the example in misconduct. The
congratulations of the Court of Directors on
the excellence of the Punjaub administration has
been published, and it is most amusing to us to
observe the credit taken for this, as being the re-
sult, or being a part, of their system. The excel-
lence of the administration of the north-west pro-
vinces, and of all our newly-acquired dominions, is
due to the fact that the old system has been sub-
verted, set aside, or reversed in them. What has
occurred reflects discredit on the former plan just
in proportion as it compliments the present, and as
for the praise bestowed upon the company's ser-
vants, it amounts. to this, that their are multitudes
in their employment, out of whom they have yet
been able to squeeze honest English philanthropy
and enterprise, and that Lord Dalhousie chose the
best of these, and left them to do their work their
own way, and had it performed to admiration.
Had the court's system been pursued, nominations
made exclusively by interest would have been fet-
tered and trammelled by checks and regulations
to prevent the exposure of incompetence, and the
government of course come to resemble that of the
rest of India in reference to which we have little
enough to boast. The apprehensions expressed by
Principal Melvin atthe Hayleybury examination on
the 26th of June, that the selection system of no-
mination to writerships might give us too much
talent, has created an infinity of amusement. When
Dumbiedykes proposed to Jeannie Deans and she
refused him, he said, "If ye had been wise, Jeannie,
ye wad nae hae said that : but they say that mar-
ried folk aye get on best when there's ae fule in
the house." And the head instructor of the highly-
educated service would seem to hold to the prin-
ciple, that a considerable amount of indolence and
imbecility is indispensable for the government of
India. The theory is probably based upon the
fact of previous practice • those who have ob-
served its effect in tile East would have
been very glad to have dispensed with it, and en-
tertain no apprehension of mischief arising from
the importation of any amount of industry, integ-
rity, or intelligence that England can supply.
There seems to be au attempt at present making in
the House of Commons to blind the people of
England as to the provisions of the India Bill of
last year, the President of the Board of Control
and late Chairman of the India House interposing
themselves betwixt her Majesty's subjects in the
East and the constitutional resort of redress for
grievances—the British Parliament. These gen-
tlemen. perfectly know, though they ignore the
fact, that the Governor-General, and other gc-
vernors in India, do not possess one atom more
power now than they have possessed for the past
twenty years—that no change whatever has taken
place in the mechanism of government—that the
same shiploads of references which were ridiculed
and denounced by every witness examined, must
still be sent home for consideration, no matter how
trivial the subjects ; the work of Government
standing still until replies are returned. In June
last the tables of the Board of Control groaned with
piles of letters then just received from the India
House, and which bore date 1847. They had taken
seven years on their way from Leadenhall-street
to Cannon-row, and will probably take as much
more at least before they gst back again to India.
Sir Erskine Perry, when he had leave refused
him to make an act of Parliament intended for
the simplification of the procedure of the Queen's
courts at home applicable to those in India, on the
plea that the Supreme Government could concede
all that was Anted, so as to make it indelicate to
interfere, knew that through the whole term of his
servitude in the East he had struggled in this
matter, and always been opposed, and that the sine-
cure of three sheriffships, recommended in 1845 by
the whole of her Majesty's judges in the three pre-
sidencies to be abolished, is maintained to this hour
solely because it enables the governor for the time
being to bestow a gift of from one to three thou-
sand pounds annually from the public purse on a
friend. A Parliamentary paper has just reached us
containing an account of the revenues and expen-
diture of India; the former amounts to twenty-six
millions, the latter to twenty-five and a half, so
that we have once more a surplus of half a million
sterling annually such as we had before the Affghan
war began. The principal sources of our income
are the land revenue, the opium, and the salt,
which afford us respectively a little under seven-
teen millions, four millions, and two millions, the
customs somewhat exceed a million and a half ;
the four great items among them affording us
twenty-one million and a half nearly. The heavi-
est charge is, of course, the army, which costs above
nine-and a half millions ; the cost of revenue col-
lection is four millions ; the judicial and police
charges above two millions ; and civil and poli-
tical charges, including contingents, a million
and three quarters. Of course, the India accounts
are so made up that next to nothing can be made
out of them. So far as we can discover from those
now before us the condition of our finances is satis-
factory. Orders have been sent out from England
to reverse the system which used to prevail in re-
ference to public improvements, and the Govern-
ments are desired to spend from henceforth as much
in place of as little as heretofore on canals, roads,
tanks, and other public works, and seven millions
sterling have meanwhile been set aside for imme-
diate use. Private enterprise has of late been in a
state of unusual activity at Bombay. In the
course of the past twelve months one new bank,
in addition to the three previously existing, has
been established, and a branch bank—we had one
or two before—has been introduced amongst us
—a new set of cotton presses worked on the
hydraulic principle are being set up by a joint
stock company—we haVe two companies on the
tapir for spinning cotton by machinery—one for
establishing paper-mills—one for obtaining fat
cattle and other farm produce from the neighbour-
hood—the greatest is behind. The share books of
a joint stock company for cutting canals of
st,
irri-
gation, laid before the London world in May last,
were opened on the 17th of August in Bombay, and
in 12 days time 450,0001. worth of shares have been
applied for. This added to the stock claimed at
home is considerably in excess of the half million
of capital originally contemplated; and if shares
are allotted to all applying for them, the stock will
r: in creased to a million—the great
‘ in all likelihood be set down in
a before the present mail reaches London. Cap-

_
S Tr ken Haines, late political agent at Aden, who was
tied 4 weeks since on two separate sets of indict-
Ot ,t, 0 i , Viols-4\ °r the embezzlement of 28,0001. of public
••4' ;i; '''' -A-. japlier,l and acquitted on both occasions, is at pre-
:. ~ :-.- t''it• in, he county gaol as a debtor to Government.
''-' .7,:iii.isti ca. ssion of shocks of earthquake of no great 1
ii;‘ I lllaviitiude, of pretty general occurrence, were felt
,i, il , .7-7' '.35-. - •'' pttore and Lower Bengal and at Calcutta on
,
tladVci:

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~ °, s

the morning of the 26th, a second was experienced
at Midnapore on the 27th, andka,third at the same
station as well as at Kurrachee !Lower Scinde at
6 a.m., on the 29th July. At this period rain and
storms prevailed all over India, extending as far
west as the volcanic regions of the Red Sea. All
hopes are now given up of the safety of the Lady
Nugent. She sailed from Madras May 11, for
Rangoon, with the head-quartersand a detachment
of the 25th Regiment Native Infantry ; Lieut.
Colonel Johnstone, Lieut. and Adjutant Daly,
Lieut. and Quartermaster King, Lieut. Bamford,
and Assistant-Surgeon Simpson on board, and she
is supposed to have gone down during the storms
which prevailed betwixt the 24th and 27th of May.
Samples have been sent home by the present mail
of some varieties of hemp most plentiful in our
bazaar—viz., Rajpooree Bunn, 161. a ton ; Deochur
ditto, 181. a ton ; SaLsette, 14/. ; Ambarra, 91. ;
and specimens of our other fibres, as well as larger
supplies of those enumerated, will speedily follow
by the Cape. Though the scarcity of fibre and the
importance of seeing what India could supply was
well known here in February last, not an ounce of
European flax seed was to be had at the presi-
dency when the rains set in, nor is it still ; and to
the intimation given in the Bombay Times of April,
that half a million's worth of fibre might be disposed
of could fitting specimens only be provided, no re-
ply was ever received ; a curious instance of apathy
with a Government living on its laud revenue, a
chamber of commerce, and agricultural society,
to which such things ought to be of special
interest, contrasted with the cases of energy
noted above. The Geographical Society has re-
solved hereafter to conduct its meetings on the
London model, to admit the public to have popular
papers read, and lectures delivered, and it is hoped
the example may extend. It is rather bard upon
the well-behaved portion of the Indian com-
munity that the manners and customs of the
whole should be considered correctly delineated
by Mr. Arnold, Mr. Lang, Mrs. M'Kenzie, or
the " Delhi Sketch Book," or, still worse, by the
reports of our criminal courts—yet such at present
is too much the case. Should it remain so the
fault will be our own. The Governor-General is at
present in Calcutta ; Lord Harris at Madras ; and
Lord Elphinstone, who is slightly indisposed,
arrived from Poona last night, and is expected to
spend the remainder of the season at the presidency.
The weather fortithe past four weeks has been de-
lightful, with a constant alternation of sunshine
and showers. It now begins to be warm, and we
should still very much desire six or eight inches of
rain, no more than sixty having fallen up to the
present date. The prospects of trade are favour-
able, and money very abundant in the market.