The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-19 00:00:00

EUROPEAN ARMY IN INDIA.

The Government have determined to discontinue
the separate European Army in India. That any
decision has been arrived at will be heard with a
certain satisfaction by the Indian officers, who have
been long in a state of harassing uncertainty as to
their fate. Suspense is, at any rate, at an end. To
the general public, however, this announcement
may convey only a very vague idea, and we can
scarcely hope to make it plain without some slight
sketch of what our military force in India has been
and now is.

Up to May, 1857, when the mutinies broke
out, the British power in India rested upon three
distinct military bodies. In the first place, there
was always a contingent of the Royal Army,
usually about 25,000 strong, taking its turn of
duty in India ; secondly, there was the Company's
European Army, consisting of Engineers, Artillery,
and Infantry, and generally numbering about
15,000 men ; lastly, there was the Company's re-
gular Native Army—that great Sepoy Army which
three years ago rose in mutiny against its masters.
This seldom amounted to less than 250,000 sabres
and bayonets. So tremendous a force had grown
up with the necessities of conquest, and it sub-
sisted with tolerable ease upon the resources of the
industry it protected or coerced. But, with the
exception of the contingent of the Royal Army, it
has all vanished. The Army of the East India Com-
pany has dissolved even as the sovereignty of the
Company has dissolved. That quarter of a million
of disciplined native soldiers has been destroyed.
The Sepoy Army, from having been the defence of
India, became the enemies of our power, and have
become the victims of our prowess. They are slaugh-
tered, or they are driven into hiding, or they are
forced back into the civil population. The Com-
pany's European Army has, with a strange fatality,
followed the fate of the Sepoys. They have also
disbanded themselves. The Indian authorities who
have shown themselves se curiously infelicitous
both in their firmness and in their conciliation, had
no sooner succeeded in overriding the storm occa-
sioned by the mutiny of their high-caste native sol-
diery, than they provoked a quarrel with their
European Army upon a question of disputed
bounty. Most of these men took their discharge,
and are now in England. Of all the Company's
force, therefore, there is next to nothing left. There
is, indeed, an immense quantity of miscellaneous
levies, Sikhs and others, which have been called to-
gether to hunt down the Sepoys, but these are an
irregular and extraordinary force—a mere substi-
tute for what is gone. Of the old orthodox Indian
Army there is nothing but the officers and some
wrecks' and relics of the corps which they com-
manded.

It was under these circumstances that the ques-
tion arose whether wo should repair the old
system, or whether we should contrive a new one.
Shall we constitute out of the 400,000 irregular
native troops, now or lately in our pay, an army
like to that which we have just annihilated ; and
shall we recruit more men in Europe to fill up the
skeletons of the Company's European regiments, or
shall we change The whole system, and have one
Imperial Army ? As to the natives there could be
no great doubt. We could not keep near half-a-
million of military rabble in pay. It was plain
that when we had picked out of these an efficient
police, and draughted off an auxiliary force suffi-
cient to garrison stations unfavourable to Euro-
pean life, and to do duties which in a hot climate
Europeans do not advantageously perform, we must
send the rest back to their rice-fields. But the
question as to the Europeans was much more doubt-
ful. The old European force of the Company was
as fine a fighting force as ever appeared in India
since the time of Alexander. Any one who enters
upon the study of their achievements would pro-
bably soon -become so excited by the incidents of
their history that he would grow to prefer them to
any army whose deeds are chronicled in our Euro-
pean, annals, Their colours are, for the space 'of

time over which their career extends, the grandest
things in existence. The Ist Regiment of European
Fusileers numbers thirteen great battles—every
battle o victory against tremendous odds, and every
victory a conquest of an enormous territory. These
heroes of our Indian Empire have continued in
succession undegenerate to the present day. At
Delhi they were as good as any of the Royal re-
giments, and better than most. It was right, there-
fore, to pause before we destroyed an " institution"
like this, and with such a history. But, on the
other hand, the hopelessness of unbroken Indian
service—no vision even afar off of a return to home,
except to die—give a character of desperation to
this corps, which induced a laxity of discipline.
The recent example of general insubordination
and practical desertion was not encouraging or de-
sirable to bo maintained as a precedent in an exist•
ing force. If it had been in full and thriving exist-
ence it would not have been prudent to destroy it;
but now that it is by its own act defunct it has been
thought unwise so revive it. The old system, with
all its advantages, had the disadvantage of having
under the same Queen two armies, with two dif-
ferent systems of promotion, pay, and allowances,
serving side by side. For this it is now determined
to substitute one Imperial Army, taking its turn of
duty throughout the British Empire in all its home
provinces and foreign dependencies.
In principle there can be no doubt about the
propriety of this resolve ; but its expediency is not
quite so clear as it might seem upon this general
statement. The object is one of undoubted advan-
tage, but the details are of almost insurmountable
difficulty. Although the ni-m of the Sepoy Army
and of the European Army are destroyed, disperses
or disbanded, the officers remain. Many of these
have undoubtedly' been already provided for in the
police or in civil employ ments in India, but many
remain still without employ. What system can be
adopted whereby these officers can be draughted
into the Royal Army without injury to those privi-
leges which are secured to them by Act of Parlia-
ment, and which are to them a lawful property ?
The nominal rank of an officer in the Company's
service and in the Queen's service had no identity
whatever. In the Company's service the pay was
very much greater and the promotion was very
much slower. It happened, therefore, that a cap-
tain in the company's service often had a very con-
siderable income, and the command of a most im-
portant force ; whereas his rank, if he were
draughted into the Queen's Army, would reduce
him to the command of a company, and to one-
tenth of his ancient pay. It is not competent to
us here to enter into the details of the arrangements
by which this great difficulty is to be met, but it is
obvious that very liberal treatment must be set
before the Indian officers to induce them to give
up their present advantages and to subside into
the general mess of the British Army. One
happy occasion offers of easing the roughness of
this transition. These must be of necessity a
special Indian Staff department for all the branches
of Indian service. Ultimately this will be filled by
Imperial officers who choose Indian studies as their
early occupation, and who elect to make India their
career; but for the present it will probably form
a means of employment to many of the Indian offi-
cers who may not find a compensation for their
previous position in their corresponding rank in
the Queen's Army.
This is a very difficult problem to be worked out
and a very desirable object to be attained. It seems
to us that, if the Government honestly undertake
it, with a view to do as fairly as they can by all
parties, they ought to be aided by indulgent criti-
cism and a general support. It is not to be expected
that every one can be satisfied ; it is scarcely to be
hoped that some real grievances will not occur. But
we must remember that the old system has sunk
under our feet, that it is not we who are destroy-
ing, but that we are called upon to reconstruct;
and that, having to reconstruct, we have some right
to ask of the old materials to be content with the
best places we can give them in the new edifice.
We must do them no wrong, but we must ask them
to bear with us while we adapt them to the utilities
of a new era.—Tiwes.

THE MURDER, AND SUICIDE IN SHOREDITCH.

Yesterday evening Mr. John Humphreys, the
coroner for the eastern division of Middlesex, re-
sumed the investigation, at Mr. Gill's, the Black
llors< Tavern, Kinfrsland-road, into the circum-
stances attending the death of Ellen Hart, aged 41
years, who was found my.rdered at No. 40, Phillip.
street, Kingsland-road, on Tuesday morning last.
It will be remembered that every circumstance
which came to light in the investigation rnai.e by
the police went clearly to show that the deceased
woman had met her death at the hands of a man
named Joseph Itadden, with whom she cohabited,
and these suspicions were strongly confirmed by the
fact that on Wednesday morning his dead body
was found in the Regent's Canal, with his hands so
faetened as to leave no doubt that he had committed
suicide: The body was removed to the Shoreditch
workhouse, which being in the same district the
coroner last evening also proceeded with an inquiry
into the cause of the death of the alleged murderer.
The jury having proceeded to view the body of the
suicide the following. evidence was taken:—
Sarah Parks was the first witness examined, and
deposed that she lived at No. 2, Weymouth-street.
She knew the deceased by working with her. She
saw the deceased on Monday at five o'clock ; they
then both went to No. 12, Whitmore-street, and
there found Radden, deceased, and another woman
at tea. Nothing in particular was said. They both
stopped there till after 7 o'clock, when the deceased
and Radden went to the Sir Robert Peel public
house and left' about 10 o'clock.. The deceased and
Radden were both the worse for drink, but they
did not quarrel. She saw nothing of them till, the
next morning, when she went to the house of the
deceased in Phillip-street, at 10 o'clock. Witness
went into the room and found the deceased lying in
bed covered with blood. She immediately gave the
alarm.

E. Morgan, 55, Old Castle-street, Shoreditch,
said she was a companion of the deceased. She'also
knew the deceased man. They were both fond of
drink and occasionally given to quarrelling, but the
deceased woman once threatened that she could
transport Radden, or that she would " do" for him.
She saw nothing of the deceased or Radden until
Monday morning. Deceased was jealous of Radden.
Mr. John Gay, senior surgeon to the Great
Northern Hospital, said he had made an *examina-
tion of the body yesterday morning with Mr. Clark.
He found the body in the middle of the bed, lying on
the left side. The head was drawn back, lying on
two pillows, the trunk nearly straight, the thighs
bent at a right angle on the body, the right knee
about three inches in advance of the ]eft, from a
slight inclination of the right side of the pelvis for-
wards. " The right arm rested on the side, the fore-
arm of that side was bent at right angles with the
arm ; the hand was clenched firmly and lying in a
pool of blood on the bed ; the left arm lay under the
side; the forearm was bent at an acute angle, the
hand lying on its back on the under pillow, about
five inches off the chin. There was a nightcap on
the head, tied under the chin ; a chemise on the
body, tied in front, but leaving the neck, bare. The
mouth was nearly closed, the tip of the tongue
held firmly by the teeth. There were two marks,
but of questionable character, each of the size of a
shilling—one on either side of the nose, just above
the mouth. There was a deep incised wound
across the throat, extending 31 inches from
the left of the middle line of the' neck to the
end of the collarbone on the opposite side, and
slanting from above backwards and forwards. It
was 8 inches in length and 21 inches in width
where it gaped most. Os the left side of the neck
it was comparatively superficial in the first two
inches of its course, and it did not extend to the
larger vessels, but over the middle of the neck and
on the right side it extended to the vertebrae—that
is as deep as it could be carried without dividing the
bone of the spinal column. In this part of its
course it had divided the superficial and deep
muscle, the trachea or windpipe, between the second
and third rings, the gullet and the carotid artery,
the jugular veins and nerves, besides some smaller
vessels. It was deep at its termination on the right
side, and carried under the skin close behind the
collarbone. The muscles had retracted violently,
and large cots of blood occupied the wound, and
extended from it to the pool of blood in the bed.
Some air-bubbles occupied the termination of the
windpipe. Tie: body generally was rigid, and the
right bsnd was' firmly clenched. There wure no
other masks of violence on the body. There were
a few spots of blood on the face. The chin was
'bloody as well as the string of the nightcap. There
was blood upon the chemise and on the pillow, and
a large quantity of clotted blood upon the sheet in
front of the body. Some of the blood had pene-
trated through the bed and sacking and trickled on
the floor. There was no blood under the body,
showing that there had been no struggle. The
wound in the throat was the cause of death. It
was impossible that it was a suicide ; he was con-
firmed in that opinion by the direction that the
wound had taken. It was evidently a wound in-
' flitted by some sharp instrument during sleep.

Mr. Clark said he examined the body of Raddcn
soon after it was taken out of the water. The hands
were tied with a handkerchief; the right coat
sleeve, the right pocket of the coat, and the wrist-
band were spotted with blood. There were no
marks of violence on the body to account for death.
Death was caused by suffocation produced by
drowning.
The Coroner, in summing up, pointed out the
facts bearing on the occurrence, and alluded par-
ticularly to the evidence of Mrs. Webb, who was
visited by ,Redden at two o'clock on Tuesday morn-
ing.

The court wag then cleared, and after a short
deliberation the jury returned the following ver-
dict :—" That the deceased Ellen Hart was wilfully
murdered by Joseph Radden ; that the said Joseph
Radden was found dead in the Regent's Canal by
suffocation by drowning ; and although there was
no evidence on that point the jury believed that he
ueturvyeu His own life." The_ inquiry then termi-
nated.