The Sun.
London, England, 1857-06-30 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, JUNE 30, 1857.

Let these last insurrectionary atrocities in India
mark the turning point in the system of our
Oriental Government. Disastrous as the occasion
is in itself, it may, if rightly used, be transformed
into a golden opportunity. Foremost, of course,
among the duties devolving upon us in conse-
quence of these most lamentable outrages, robbe•
ries, and assassinations—foremost among those
duties, we say, is obviously the one dictated by
what may be termed the mere instinct of self-pre-
servation. We must suppress the mutiny imme-
diately and thoroughly. We Must inflict a
summary and terrible punishment upon these in-
sensate and flagitious rebels, who have not only
dared to raise their treasonous weapons against
our authority, but have imbrued those weapons
in the blood of unoffending women and chil-
dren. Prudence and Justice—nay, Humanity
and Mercy, demand this at our hands : they de-
mand that the horde of traitors and assassins now
sheltering themselves within the walls of Delhi
should be visited at once with a very signal and a
very terrible vengeance. That is our first step.
The crimes these wretched men have perpetrated
must be fully and forthwith expiated—and their
expiation must be as rapid and as conspicuous as
their perpetration. Otherwise the flames just
kindled at Moorshedabad, spreading onwards to
Meerut, and thence again to Delhi, would be
manifestly liable to ignite, with frightful rapidity,
all the combustible materials scattered far and
wide over the surface of that inflammable commu-
nity, ending at last in one general, irrepressible,
and appalling conflagration. The danger is so ap-
parent, that common sense alone dictates the
course that ought to be pursued, and pursued, so
to speak, instantaneously. It is no wonder,
therefore, to learn that at a Court of Directors,
held at the India House in Leadenhali-street,
without a moment's unnecessary delay, an order
has been already passed (within a few hours from
the time at which we are writing), directing all
military officers on furlough to return to their
regiments immediately ! It is scarcely surprising
to find that that same timely and judicious order
goes even further than this—requiring those offi-
cers who are at home on sick certificate also to
rejoin their regiments ; in the event, that is to
say, of the state of their health permitting them
to proceed at once to Hindostan. Allen's Indian
Mail intimates, indeed, that in several instances
the Order of the Court of Directors has been mag-
nanimously anticipated many officers having
already hastened to offer their services in this
extreme emergency to the Government. Such is
the instinctive feeling awakened on all sides of
the imminence of the extraordinary crisis in our
Indian affairs, at which we have now abruptly
arrived at.

Extinguish the Mutiny, and then—why ob-
viously our labours will then only have commenced !
THEN—men-iures Luust, be taken in
these Rebellions, with a view to the prevention of
their periodical recurrence ! In other word,, the
whole scheme of our Anglo-Indian Government
requires revision and reorganisation. As at pre-
sent constituted, our Administration in Hiu-
dostan is manifestly provocative of these insurrec-
tionary outbreaks. We dig the mine ourselves,
and lay the train, and apply the match,
and then marvel at the explosion ! Recollect
what somebody said so wittily of 'M. de
LAMARTINE at Ilse time of the glorious Rising
of February that he was an Incendiary
turned Fireman ! It is precisely and literally
thus, from time to time, with our Anglo-Indian
Government. We are there alternately SWINGS
and Fire-Annihilators ! It is a vacillation most
destructive, most foolish, and most perilous in
its possible consequences ! In HEAVEN'S name
let us desist, at last, from this Monster Folly
(which is worse than a Crime—being a Mistake)
—and let the signal for our ultimate cessation
from it prove 1-,0 have been the tocsin of revolt
struck the other day almost simultaneously at Del-
hi, at Meerut, and at Moorshedabad ! Otherwise
one of the most startling pamphleteers of his day
will have raised his earnest voice in vain, utterly
in vain, as the merest echo, in fact, of the de-
spairing accents of CASSANDRA. The pamphleteer
we allude to being no other than Mr. MALCOLM
LEWIN (a competent witness in regard to our
Anglo-Indian Government), who in some two
dozen pithy and sententious pages* has but just told
us The Way to Lose India I Mr. LEWIN'S index-
finger-post to this disastrous road being emblazoned
conspicuously with the too familiar and too ap-
propriate words Solitudinent faciunt pacem
appellant! Alas, the Road is not so very diffi-
cult to find, after all—it is the Path we are now
actually treading—it is the Way upon which we
have already far advanced! Shall it be persisted in
—the advance movement along that fatal course ?
Shall we still go on doggedly, now that we see
before us distinctly the abrupt close of that path-
way in a sheer precipice ? What says the last
warning cry of the echo of CAssANDRA ?
It asks—" Will the peoplo of England
continue to Leadenhall-street a Govern-
ment whose duties they have so much ne-
glected—will they permit a rule to endure, which,
shrouding its proceedings in secrecy, has kept the
people (of India) in thraldom, and, at the end of
two hundred years, exhibits nothing else as a re-
sult than anarchy, poverty, and disaffection ?"
Will they ? We—" pause for a reply !" Re-
member (as we said at the close of our remarks
upon this subject yesterday) that that Reply
affects not merely the preservation of our Indian
Empire, but the awful alternative of the happi-
ness or misery of 100,000,000 of our fellow
creatures.

* " The Way to Lose India ;" with Illustrations from
Leadenhall-street. By Malcolm Lewin, Esq. Bvo. pp;
23 London : Ridgway. 1857.

It is earnestly to be hoped that adequate means
may be adopted to check the existing abuses in the
system of election petitions. They are too fre-
quently presented without having the slightest
foundation whereon to rest, for the purpose of
collusion, annoyance, or extortion. A defeated
candidate,
or voters on the losing side, may exhi-
bit their malevolence, by heaping the mcst un-
warrantabl© charges against the sitting member
and his agents. He will be put to trouble and
expense, in Preparing a defence when none could
possibly be required—may receive offers of coat-
promise, in the vain hope that he would be willing
to pay black mail, to one who could cause him
xpenso and trouble. Should he have the
steadiness to reject all overtures, a letter will