The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-09-13 00:00:00

THE INDIAN PRISONERS,

(From the Delhi Gazette, May 7.)

We must leave time to develope to whom belongs the good
treatment of the Buddeabad prisoners, and are as ready to
give Akhbar Khan his meed of praise .as Dooranee can be.
Lady Sale's letters do speak in praise of her gaolers, and the
heroism displayed by this lady and her companions is a fitting
pendant to the honourable, gallant, and honoured conduct of
Sir Robert and his brave companions. It is only wonderful
the ladies have survived the hardships they have suffered; for
six weeks, says one of the letters, not one of the party changed
his or her clothes night or day. Men, women, and children
were huddled all into the same room, many of the men wound-
ed, ill, and frost-bitten, and some of the females close upon
child-birth. Almost every menial office was obliged to be
performed by themselves, and they had but the ground and
their scanty clothes to rest upon; subsequently a few comforts
were obtained, such as a plank upon a couple of old kajawahs,
serving for " bed and board," couch, and table, all in one.
General Elphinstone is also described as being in a state of
great bodily and mental anguish. It is with the greatest
anxiety we look for further particulars of the fates of the un-
fortunates.

THE MARCH FROM CABUL.—(From the Agra Ukhbar,
May s.)—The report that Akhbar Khan had taken his pri-
soners with him is, we are glad to say on good authority,
unfounded. On his eight he made them over to the charge
of a chief upon whom he could rely, and who afterwards was
murdered. The chief into whose power they then fell was,
it is said, disposed to treat for their ransom. There is,
therefore, a cheering prospect of their being eventually re-
stored to us, which we confess we despaired of as long as
they were in the clutches of Akhbar Khan, whose avarice,
keen as it might have been, would have been a weak passion,
compared with what be must have felt from his wounds,
defeat, and the total ruin of his cause. This relates only to
the prisoners at Lughman and the neighbouring forts ; those
at Cabul have probably equal chances of safety, if a careful
negotiation be set on foot. They are, we understand, more
numerous than is supposed ; numbers of Sepoys and camp-
followers having found their way back from the fatal march
to Khoord Cabal. Of these, it is said several were sold to
the Usbecs—a report which we had some time ago, and
which is so far corfirmed by this revival of it. The expense
of supporting any number of this class lends strength to the
report.
Some light is beginning to break on the conduct of the
native troops in the disastrous march from Cabul, and
though it compromises to some extent their fidelity, yet it
must be recollected that they should not have been put to a
trial which few troops so situated would have come out of
untarnished. On the march the desertions were numerous,
but confined chiefly to the mercenaries engaged for Schah
Soojah. The Envoy's mounted escort deserted to a man, as
did all Alexander's Rissalah, and a large number of Ander-
son's horse. Of the sth regular cavalry several deserted, in-
duced thereto by the native doctor of the regiment, whose
loyalty gave way amid the sufferings he was exposed to. A
number of these deserters are, it is said, in the service of
Akhbar Khan and other chiefs, from whom, however, the
first shadow of defeat will detach them. From this and
other circumstances the loss on the march from Cabul must
have been considerably overrated, and it will, we trust, even-
tually turn out to be a third less than at first imagined.

THE MURDER AT QUADRING.

ADDITION AL PARTICULARS.
(From the Stamford Mercury.)

The bloody shirt of the murderer was produced on Wed-
nesday by his mother, and the other circumstances which
transpired before the adjourned inquest yesterday led the
jurors to return a verdict of " wilful murder against William
Howitt." The wretched being's motive for the murder has
not been clearly ascertained.
A letter from one of our correspondents contains some
additional particulars, as follows :—The young man who is
committed for the horrid murder has from his birth been
deprived of the power of speaking and hearing, but has been
long dreaded on account of his malicious disposition. The
day after the murder he was at work in a field close by the
house in which the mangled corpse lay, a mere wreck of
what it wtis only a few hours before, and he was observed by
by-standers satisfying his hunger before the door, (which
was wide open,) and while gazing on the lifeless remains of
his victim.

William Howitt was at large until Friday evening, when
he was apprehended ; he had gone to rest for the night. The
box which contained his wearing apparel was examined, and
some of it, to all appearance, had been soaked in blood, and
afterwards washed, but not dried. With them was found a
knife, upon which blood remained, although it had evidently
been thrust in the ground. Howitt was at once taken by the
constable at Donington to his residence, where he remained
that night. On the following morning the coroner's inquest
was held on the body. The evidence was of so convincing a
nature that there is not a shadow of doubt the prisoner was
the murderer. James Howitt, the father, being questioned
with regard to the time his son was at home on the night of
the deed, deposed that William was at home in the afternoon
about four o'clock, took his tea, and about seven o'clock went
down the village. He was absent until some time in the
night, the exact time the father could not say, he having been
asleep. In the course of the night he heard the prisoner go
down stairs, he supposed to drink.
The mother was then called ; her statement was similar to
that of the father.
Zachariah Dawson, a gardener of Quadring, was then
brought forward : be had been the last person seen in com-
pany with the prisoner : they separated. Dawson declared,
between 9 and 10 o'clock he was going home, and the pri-
soner either going another way, or staying near the public-
house in which they had been drinking together, and which
was near the place where the bloody deed was committed.
It being known that the prisoner had certain signs or move-
ments by which he communicated with those who was inti-
mately connected with, his father was desired to act as an
interpreter ; but the answers given by him to the questions
proposed led the jury to suppose they were not in accordance
with those of the son ; and it was on this account that an ad-
journment of the inquiry before the coroner talk place, that
an indifferent person might be found who was capable of in-
terpreting satisfactorily.
At this time also the shirt of the prisoner, in which the
fonl murder was committed, was missing : it was subse-
quently found under the bed in which he lay, and strong
stains of blood arz on it, notwithstanding great efforts
aeoeuv,dtl-gatirebsetealtemitdagr enhetnilAni-essTir the poor
murdered woman was found, (over her head,) and her body
being quite exposed, that a lustful purpose had been enter-
tained by the murderer, in resisting which she lost her life,
the cruel tiger by whom she had been assailed cutting and
mangling her neck and shoulders with various deep and
dreadful gashes, in a way the most extraordinary. One
wound extends from the upper part of the breastbone to an
inch behind and above the right ear, being 9 inches in
length, and completely dividing the integuments and muscles ;
the scalp is cut to the bone, the right carotid artery is
severed, as well as the internal and external jugular veins,
and there are two gashes across the windpipe ; the hands are
also cut to the bones ; and such a sight as the remains of the
poor creature present has scarcely ever before met the eyes
of humanity.

ORIGIN OF THE WORD " NEWS."—" News " is not, as
many imagine, derived from the adjective New. In former
times it was a prevalent practice to put over the IN
periodical publications of the day the initial let-
ters
of the cardinal points of the compass, thus : E---W
importing that these papers contained intelligence
from the four quarters of the globe ; and from this S
practice it derived the term newspaper.
It is an old axiom, but very true, " when a nation abounds
in physicians it grows thin of people." We imagine this
may apply equally to surgeons, and to general practitioners.
A wiser head than mine once compared the medical public,
and not inaptly. to the British army in Cresar's time ; for
some slay in chariots, and some on foot, some in cabs, some
in " busses;" if the infantry do less execution than the
charioteers, it is because they cannot be carried so soon into
all parts of the town, and despatch so much business in so
short a time. Besides this body of regular troops, there are
stragglers, who, without being duly enlisted or enrolled, do
infinite mischief to those who are unlucky enough to fall
into their hands. There arc besides the above mentioned,
innumerable retainers of physic, who. for want of other
patients, amuse themselves with the stifling of cats in an air
pump, cutting up dogs alive, pithing frogs, or impailing of
insects upon the point of a needle for microscopical observa-
tions : besides those that are employed in the gathering and
collecting of weeds, and the chase of butterflies ; not to
mention the cockleshell merchants and spider catchers. All
these different branches of the medical profession are filled
with multitudes of ingenious gentlemen that starve one ano-
ther. The question involuntarily rises in my mind,—' What
can become of us all ? " for our numbers are assuredly
swelling, and if the amount of population be in the same
ratio diminishing, we can only ask the question, and, like
Brutus in his speech to the people, "Pause fora reply."
MEDICAL STUDENT.

SCENE IN A GERMAN GAMING-lIOUSE.—When we arose
and crossed the saloon to the right side, we were introduced
to a scene of horror, one feature of which I had never wit-
nessed before, either at home or abroad, and one feature of
which I desire not to witness again. But lam glad I have
seen it once, where and where alone it is to be seen in all its
satanic reality, more than in any part of Europe perhaps.
It was a suite of gambling-rooms, with roulette and rouge-
et-noir tables, where balls were rolling round, and heaps of
untold gold were glittering, and the lips not only of men but
of women were quivering, some in the intenseness of their
anxiety, and others in the agony of despair. Here was sel-
fishness, and avarice, and villainy, all personified in a thou-
sand fiends and faces. Here desperate adventurers were
staking their last ducat with calm and collected countenances,
in which there was just a perceptible agitation of the muscles,
indicative of the hateful passions which were boiling within.
In each of these side dens a single lamp with a circular re-
flector hung over a table which was covered with a green cloth.
On the one side of this table there sat, " in shape a beast,"
Beelzebub himself, with a heap of money before him, around
ball in one hand, and a small metal drag in the other. Like
others of the wicked, there was no rest for his hand, taking
and giving out money, and in keeping the untiring ball and
wheel in constant motion. Around him there were gamesters
of all ages and of both sexes, bending with horrid features
of anxiety over the square pieces of wax cloth, which were
chequered and numbered, and covered withimany a gold and
silver coin, all of which were changing hands every half-
minute. The dull, dim, but steady light shone dismally
down on their dark, determined faces. All was silence, still
as the grave, but the monotonous call of the coupier, and the
rattling click-click of ,the ball roiling and stotting round its
rim of ruin. We were walking along silently in a slow and
solemn pace, when a person who had come up the Rhine with
us pressed himself through the crowd with shame and con_
fusion of face. One word, and a point with his forefinger to
the gambling table explained the cause. There stood his
fellow traveller at one of the tables, cool and calculating as
Prince Metternich himself. A momentary flush had just
crossed his features, and twelve sovereigns were in the act of
being drawn from under his hand in a very common-place
sort of way, to the general treasure on the other side of the
table. In another moment fifteen were put clown by him on
different corners of the oil-cloth. As if to prevent him from
going over the falls of the Rhine at Schauffhausen, all of us
made a simultaneous rush round the table to the place where
her stood, firm from toe to top, and while he was in the act of
drawing in his prize, we literally lifted him up and took him
from the table. A word or two of kindly remonstrance
brought hi
he was in him
to his recollection, and to a sense of the danger
of
losing every farthing he had. Thus humbled
and convicted
of
depravity, and convinced of the dreadful
danger of being in of temptation, and utterly disgusted
with such objects of utter way
iniquity,
even
detestation, we all came at once
away from the whole
fact, that a public ball was and my friend led me home
to my bed-room without
giving me a knowledge of the
dancing at ten o'clock, that is to commence with music and
of the Sunday evening.
I got into the fresh, cool air, though
was
s i.ullys
had not spent my Sunday eveningen"sWiblhe I
When
exactly as I ought to have
done, yet, in the course of my very long •
life," says Francis
Head, " I think I never felt more 13
repeat—as in England we are, thank Heaven, still
disposed to
Heaven still taught to
do—remember that thou keep holy the Sabha' th dap."
own part I reflected for an hour in For
my
seen, and so far as may be judged from the feelings of a heart
which is well said to be deceitful above all things, it may be
believed that I fell asleep with sentiments more pious and
grateful than those with which I awoke in the haste and
anxiety of the previous morning. One other fact in regard
to the incidents of this day. The Englishman afterwards
told me, that he had been a gainer to the amount of seventy-
five sovereigns. " Ave," said I, " but remember that the
wages of sin is death."—.Eight weeks in Germany.