The Sun.
London, England, 1854-10-16 00:00:00

g THE
,OVERLAND MAIL.

We have received our papers and correspondence
in anticipation of the Overland Mail. The dates
are—Calcutta, September ore Madras, Sept. 10 ;
Bombay, Sept. 11; Singap, August 29 •; China,
August 11.

(Prom the Overland Bombay Times Summary of Sept. 11.)
As the mail leaves us three days earlier than
usual to enable the lazy steamer Auckland to have
some chance of reaching Aden in time, the usual
interval betwixt our despatches is curtailed by a
couple of days, and the ten days over which they
extend have been nearly barren of events.
The Nizam's dominions are again disturbed. A
zemindar named Letchimand Row, at the head of
some hundreds of armed followers, is plundering
and intercepting remittances to the capital. He
carried off, about a fortnight ago, 20,0001. in cash,
besides jewels, from a single district ; and the Naib
of the districts in which he is plundering reports
that the Government troops are quite unequal to
his capture, and requests extraneous aid.
The King of Ava, is said to have determined on
despatching to Calcutta his brother, at the head of
an embassy, with a 'view of making arrangements
for the promotion of a good understanding betwixt
the two Governments from henceforth. Should the
our prove well-founded, it will afford the
strongest proof that can be had of the complete
humiliation of the Burmese, who hitherto not only
refused to treat with us, but to receive our ambas-
sadors with ordinary decency. British Burmah at
present seems generally quiet, with the exception
of those occasional irregularities to be looked for
in recently subjected dominions opening out
without natural barrier on the frontiers of the
enemy.
Our intelligence from Affghanistan and Persia are
nearlyall pacific and satisfactory, that of an opposite
, character current a few months ago having, we have
no doubt, been manufactured for those at the
time hungering and thirsting for tales of terror
regarding Russia, and ready to swallow anything,
however monstrous, if only sufficiently alarming.
The coal sent down by the King of Ava is of very
good quality ; the Bentinck used it on her last trip
from Prome to Rangoon.
Colonel Sleeman, resident at Lucknow, has been
compelled for the present to withdraw from the
sphere of his duties, and Oude is thus deprived of
the only hope possessed by her of an approach to
peace or tranquillity. Colonel Sleeman is a man of
remarkable ability, determination, and uprightness,
and, we need hardly add, a sturdy anti-annexa-
tionist, and the people will, in all likelihood, hail
with delight the hour that promises to extinguish
the Royal dynasty and give them the British
Government in its stead. Forty-five years' unin-
terrupted service has, in the removal of Colonel
Sleeman, deprived them of their last protector;
The discovery of coal on the banks of the Irra-
waddy, and the completion of railway communica-
tion between the Burdwan collieries and Calcutta,
together with the efficient working of the Labuan
coal-pits and the obtainment of a supply in Japan,
will do much towards diminishing the cost of steam
navigation in the Indian and China seas, and libe-
rate a good deal of freight for other cargoes.
A commission has just been appointed by the
Governor-General for the management of the state
of Nagpore, now considered a portion of the Bri-
tish dominions. It will be created a sort of inde-
pendent despotism, and exempt, therefore, from
the oppression of patronage and external interfer-
ence ; and, freed of these encumbrances, it will in
all likelihood be satisfactorily governed.
The excellence of the management of the Pun-
jaub and the prosperity of its finances are due ex-
clusively to the fact of its administration being
conducted as unlike that of the rest of India as
possible. So far from furnishing ground of con-
gratulation to the admirers of the old system, it
supplies a standing reflection on past mismanage-
ment.
A selection from the records of the government
of the north-west provinces, just published, shows
that female infanticide, supposed to be all but ex-
tinct, is still very prevalent in the districts around
Agra. An instance of it was lately brought to
light in the Bombay Presidency. A poor woman
was confined of twins. She had been suckling an
infant of three years old up to within a short
period of her confinement. While tending the
little girl, then suffering from small pox, she was
unable to suckle the new-born infants, who seemed
to have died of starvation ; in the presence, how-
ever, and apparently according to the wishes of
their father and grandmother, the family being of
a. caste accustomed to destroy their female child-
ren. A worse variety of infanticide than any we
have put down is at present permitted to prevail
amongst us without any attempt at its suppression.
Hindoo widows left childless, an incident of the
most common occurrence, as maybe supposed where
all marriages are compulsory, and girls just passed
the age of puberty are forced to marry husbands
old and worn out, however wealthy, are stripped
of their possessions the moment their husbands
expire. Their hair is cut, they are robbed of all
their ornaments, and compelled tlfenceforth to sub-
sist as cooks or domestics in a state of the most
miserable servitude. Living as outcasts, without
the incentive to good conduct, and incapable of
being more degraded, as may be naturally be sup-
posed, prostitution becomes general amongst them,
infanticide being resorted to in its earlier stages to
conceal the crime. The redress their husbands
themselves might afford has no chance of ever
being obtained, and all that is required is, a law to
make them the life-renters of their husbands'
estates, or to secure them such proportion of their
property as is provided by law to widows in
Europe. The young Hindoo widow possessed of
means would in this case run no more risk of want
of lawful- suitors than other widows similarly
situated throughout the world, and would, should
it be otherwise or should she wish to remain
single, continue in the enjoyment of those com-
forts she was accustomed to as a wife. The
present atrocious state of matters is enjoined
by no religious precept, and seems to have come
into existence like Suttee and infanticide, where
widows were murdered to secure their possessions,
and female children to save their dowries, that
avarice might be indulged by the destruction of
the helpless. The tyranny of • custom has perpetu-
ated what the cruelty of selfishness began.
A public meeting has just been held at Kurra-
chee, presided over by the commissioner, Mr.
Frere, with a view of promoting the construction
of a railway in Lower Scindo, by which projectors
at home will find that a fair prospect of good re-
turns is held out to them, and that they have the
fullest assurance of all the assistance and support
Government can give them.
A camp or army of exercise, of 6,000 or 8,000
men, is to be assembled at Kurrachee, next cold
season, after the manner of the Poona Chobham
of last year.
The commissioners have just started from Cal-
cutta to investigate into the charges transmitted
by a small insignificant party at Singapore against
Sir James Brooke, of Sarawak. The expense
of the inquiry is estimated at from 12,0001. to
20,000/. ; of the result every one in India is
satisfied already ; that the " harmless fishermen"
of the London philanthropists
were a set of as
blood-thirsty miscreants as ever infested any sea,
and that hanging and shooting was too good for
them, Sir James Brooke doing no more than his
duty in destroying as many of them as he could lay
hold of.
The share list of the Western India Irrigation
Company having been filled up, a provisional com-
mittee has been elected. It is rumoured that the
prospectus will be so far remodelled as to exclude all
allusion to a guarantee from the Court of Directors.
The Bombay shareholders feel such perfect confi-
dence in the success of their scheme that the
guarantee of a minimum of 5 per cent. seems ridi-
culous, when they are satisfied that their lowest
"return's can never fall under 15, and that if left to
themselves their dividends will probably soon
amount to double this. They now, it is understood,
desire to proceed on the ordinary terms of the joint-
stock company,
under a limited liability, and
have received the
assurances of support
and assistance
administration,fiowmarnitheset members of the local
as they had done before from the
highest authorities
pro-
ceed as auspiciously a
at home. If matters
is .expected, the surveys
t
will, in all likelihood,
of the cold. weather, e completed in the course
works
contracts be taken,
and very possibly the be commenced before
the rains set in. The copartnery are sanguine of
being able to satisfy the public at home that the
natives, who constitute more than nine-tenths of
that the delays
the shareholders, are not always chargeable
chargeable with
the apathy ascribed to them,and
in all things associated in the public mind with
Indian affairs are things rather of custom than of
necessity.
The debate in the House of Commons en the pro-
posal of Mr. Blackett to send a commission
Madras to inquire into the state of the land to
re-
venue has occasioned no small amount of amuse-
ment amongst us. The proposal was resisted on
the plea that the governors of India were now
invested with all the powers that could be desired
by them, and that it would be indelicate to in-
terfere in their administration. The powers of the
authorities here. have not been increased by a
hair's-breadth for the past twenty years, and
all the complex and cumbrous system of ad-
ministration existing here and at home since
1775 remain exactly as they have been for the
past three-quarters of a century. Simultaneously
with thipublication of the debate, the new Post
Office Act was laid before the world, by which it

was shown that no delicacy was felt by the autho-
rities at home in interfering in the most vexatious
and annoying way that could be conceived with the
views of the Governor-General. The same mail
which contained a report of the debate, brought us
out the court's education manifesto, an equally
gross and indelicate interference with the local au-
thorities, though in all other respects as unlike as
possible to the Post Office despatch.
For the past week the rains have returned with
all their violence, and we now have attained an
abundant supply. The monsoon indeed has proved
so favourable that in our present good fortune there
is some fear we may suffer the plan of our Salsette
Waterworks to go to sleep till another drought
awakens us.
The Governor-General, and the Governors of
Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, are all at their re-
spective seats of government hard at work, as if
convinced that statesmen in India had other duties
than jobbing appointments, drawing their salaries,
and taking their ease, according to the system just
passed away. The mail of the evening of the 9th
of August arrived on the morning of the sth of
September, a transit of 26 days 6 hours.
The prospects of trade are very encouraging ;
there has been no change in the money market ;
money is abundant and may be had on easy terms,
but there has been no demand for it.