The Sun.
London, England, 1857-06-29 00:00:00

LONDON, MONDAY, JUNE 29-, 1857

ALISON Las said—" Fear is the chief cause of
Cruelty." Sir ARCHIBA LD might have added
that the next is Hatred : and the third (and the
most usual) the lust of Vengeance, or as we might
otherwise almost venture to term it, the instinct
of Retaliation. Combine those three terrible in-

centives, and you have the utmost conceivable
provocative to inhuman outrage and massacre.
It is precisely in this combination of motives that
we may dicover the true source of these frequent
and bloody insurrections in Hindostan. Fear—
Hatred—Vengeance : these are, in truth, the ac-
tuating emotions of all the Asiatic rebellions against
our Inglo-Indian Government. It was SD at the
very first rising against our authority. It is so
at the very last—at the one now immediately
contemporaneous. Fear of our might—Hatred
of our rule—Vengeance for the long and grind-
ing aggravation of our Mis-Government. It is a
terrible truth that it is so—but it is so neverthe-
less. The conquered races of the East have
learnt alas ! from our erroneous system of admi-
nistration to dread what we ought to have taught
them rather to look to with affectionate reliance—
to abhor what we ought to have tutored them to
love and reverence. And having done this, we
have sown broadcast amongst them the seeds of a
yearning for retaliation. This—remember—
when the two boons we had to offer them, in the
right hand and in the left, were Civilisation and
Christianity.
Additional intelligence in regard to this lest
Indian mutiny happily mitigates, in a great mea-
sure, the anxiety not unnaturally awakened by
the first brief announcement. Our Overland
Correspondence, if it does bring an antidote for
the bane of the evil-news flashed to us in the first
instance by the Electric Telegraph—conveys to
us, at any rate, a very appreciable anodyne or
assuagement. It consoles us with the knowledge
that the insurrectionary movement is, for the most
part, restricted to Delhi and its immediate neigh-
bourhood ! Sir JOHDT LAWRENCE, we now learn,
has adopted every available measure of a precau-
tionary character throughout the Punjaub—so
that there at least the spirit of subordination will
be sustained. At Meerut the rebels had met with
the most signal discomfiture. And, so complete
and thorough had been the military system of re-
pression already employed against the murderous
insurgents that our troops were rapidly advancing
(ahen the last advices left India) were rapidly ad-
vancing from all sides upon Delhi—the one sole
remaining stronghold of the mutineers. Unfor-
tunately, it does still appear that at Meerut, while
the rebels were for a while predominant, the mas-
sacre recorded in our impression of Saturday actu-
ally did take place—the 11th and 20th Regiments
of Native Infantry and the 3d Cavalry murdering
every officer they could lay their assassin-hands on !
While at Delhi—men women and children were
indiscriminately butchered. However, at Meerut.,
as we have intimated, the mutineers have either
been dispersed or exterminated ; while to Delhi
and its vicinity the Rising is already almost
entirely confined. And there it is manifestly
fated to be very speedily avenged—and avenged
thoroughly. Our forces were not only, as we have
said, advancing upon Delhi from all directions,
but their advance threatened, when the intelligence
left, to be all the more terrible, from the fact of
its being the result of a precencerted and syste-
matic combination. The Commander-in-Chief was
hastening forward from Umballa with the Queen's
75th Regiment, with the Ist Fusileers, With the
9th Landers, with two Regiments of Native In-
fantry, and two troops of European Horse Artil-
lery. He would find considerable reinforcmnents
awaiting his arrival at Meerut—and, thus rein-
forced, would advance directly, and without any
further delay, upon the doomed city of
the head and heart of the insurrectionary move-
ment ! Auxiliaries a'l the while pressing for-
ward to our aid farm Agra, where the Sepoy
troops remained faithfully by the. Lieutenant--
Governor, and (besides other places) from the
respective provinces presided over by the constant
As of Gwalior, Bhurtpore, and Putteeallah.
Everything, indeed, portended the easy and
speedy suppression of a revolt as brief as it was
at first alarming, and, as it has been un
questionably, during its short-lived continu-
ance, sanguinary. But —this will surely no t
be all ? The suppression of the revolt—will--
assuredly be only precursory. Something better
than the punishment of a handful of assassins
and traitors must follow. Prudence—Justice--
Common Sense—like demand that it should be
as we are implying. These periodical risings
show that there is "something rotten in the
state of Hindostan !" Let us bethink ourselves
at last how it may best be rid of the gangrene.
The Duty devolving upon us is imperative. Let
it be obeyed without further prevarication,
promptly, energetically) and
,thoroughly. Upon
the manner in which it shall be obeyed depended
the allegiance of 100,000,000 of the human race
—and much more than their allegiance, their
misery, or their happiness !

The Ballot—to-morrow evening—will be for-
'many brought under the consideration of the new
Parliament. It is the " Momentous Question "
of the Session—the. Test of the recently-sleeted
House of Commons. From the result of the
Division upon Mr. BEKKELEY'A annual motion it
will be seen how far the cause of Reform has really
benefitt3d by the last General Election. Let all
thorough-going Reformers in the House be true to
their priaciples and to their promises, to them-
selves and t) their constituents, and we do believe
that the supporters of this First and Foremost
of all Reforms will be found to have been very
considerably multiplied in numbers within the
walls of the Legislature. Wit'iout those walls
their name is Legion. Within them, we believe,
as we have said, that their numbers have been
recently very considerably extended. However
this may be—" We shall see "—and that before
many hours have elapsed. Of course, if some Hon.
Members shirk the Question by Non-At enl-
ance, and others turn tail at the last moment,
and give the lie to all their fair words when they
stood upon the hustings in the beseeching attitude
of candidates for suffrages then appearing to be
dubious—of course, we say, should both these
courses be pursued, the numbers we aro calcu-
lating upon will be very deplorably diminished.
But the division list will afford proof positive how
far, in this particular, our hopes and fears may
have been realised. Again, therefore, we most
strenuously urge the Reformers generally through-
out the country to look well to that di vi-
sion 'list—to examine it closely, scrutinisingly,
microscopically Marking its deficiencies and its
blots—the deficiencies of Non-attendance, and
the blots of Recantation I Again, however, we
would here reiterat3 our former appeal to our
liberal provincial contemporaries —en treating
them to reproduce in their columns, as conspicu-
ously as possible, that same Division list with the
names of the local representatives, whether of
borough, city, county, claque port, or univer-
sity, marked wits an asterisk, in CAPITALS, or
italicised ! Accordingly as they shall have evaded
the difficulty by Non-Attendance ! Fulfilled
their promises, and stood firmly by their prin-
ciples ratted or remained obdu-
ratelt is—remember this—the solitary test of
the Session. Th©Premier has
cipl;sl
has postponed his pro-
mised Reform Bill until 1858 so that every-
thing else saving and excepting the Ballot (and
for thatexception )
thanks to Mr. BERKELEY
has been coolly given the go-by for 1857. Every-