Cooper's Clarksburg register. [volume] (Clarksburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1851-1861, 1857-09-11
English savagcs VS.. East Indian Ones

English Savages VS.. East Indian Ones.
The private letters which have been re.
ceiyed from India give even a more fear
full picture of the barbarities inflicted on
the English than the accounts in the
newspapers. Children were tossed up
into the air. and then caught on the bay
onets of the Sepoys; others were taken
by the feet and their brains dashed out
against the wall; still others were mutila-
ted, and then left to die. Women were
outraged in the presence of their hus.
bands, fathers or brothers. In one in
stance six hapless females took refuge in
room. where they were pursued and
discovered. all except one, the youngest
and most beautiful, who concealed her
self under a sofa. The FIVE were first vi
olated and then beheaded. The other
might have escaped, but for the blood
which trickled down on her under the
sofa, and at which she screamed. She
was dragged out at this, and, after some
debate, carried off to the Emperor's ha-
rem, a fate, to a Christian, worse than
death. These examples. culled from a
score Of others equally horrible, will give
some idea of the ferocity Of the Sepoys-
some notion of what semisavage people
are capable of, when reused by long years
of insult and oppression, and having once
tasted blood.
But what shall we say Of the retaliato-
~ cruelties of the English? At Tesha-
wur, forty mutineers Of the 55th were tied
to the muzzles of cannon, and in the pre- g.
ence Of the whole remaining army literally
blown away. The vengeance thus begun
is to be carried out In the same atrocious
manner, if we are to credit the London
journals. For the Times. instead of cen
surfing these sickening executions, calls
aloud for further retaliations. ga terri
BILE example is needed" it says, can ex-
ample which shall be spoken of in the
villages of British India for generations to
come" and il strives to deepen the angry
hate, the ferocious thirst for revenge,
which already maddens the English pop
ulace, by heaping such epithets on the
Sepoys as fends and ruffians, and by in
yoking every worst passion of the heart.
Other newspapers, the Illustrated News
among them, echoes back this howl for
blood. We may be prepared, therefore,
| to hear OF terrible atrocities perpetrated
by the British, as soon as their power is
more secure, What the wounded and
enraged lioness is, when the hunter has
slain her young. that England will be in
India; and wo to the victims who may
fall into her hands in the first terrible mo.
ments Of her wrath.
And yet, though the heart shudders at
the outrages committed by the Sepoys, it
is not near so reyolted as at the brutal
retaliation of the conquerors. For the
acts of one are those Of semi barbarous
men-the deeds of the other are the
deeds of so-oalled Christians. An igno-
rant, brutal, exasrerated soldiery, loosed
from control. are the perpetrators in the
one case. Educated officers, English
men of high birth, order the cruelties
that disgrace the other. The original at
rocities were the convulsive spasms of a
mob of mutineers. The retaliation was
the cool and deliberate work of an organ.
lied government. In the bloody exces-
ses they committed. the Sepoys have not
gone so very far beyond their moral ma
ture. But when British officers blow reb-
els from the mouths of cannon, and when
the leading journal at home not only ap-
plauds the act, but cries for deeper ven
geance, we almest loose faith in civiliza.
ton. and ask ourselves in what the Eng
llshman is better than the Hindoo. For
the Hindoo has more cause to be fierce
and blood>thirsty. He has generations
of insult and outrage to avenge. and not
merely few isolated acts. The British
in India. the British of the nineteenth
century, are already more savage than
the Sepoy.