The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-02-14

| the English journals, seizes every opportunity to
comment with great indignation on the atrocities
which are so often committed in this country
The frequent use of the bowie-knife and the re-
volver, and the application of what is termed
lynch-law to numerous offenders are continually
referred to by these writer's whenever our social
or political condition is discussed. For the many
murderous deeds that have been done, and which
are recounted abroad to our disparagement we
have not one word of excuse or palliation to offer
But when these are carefully summed up by our
critics, and presented to the world as the cumula-
tive evidence which proves us to be barbarous
and semi-civilized people, we take leave to except
to the sweeping conclusion. There are, it is
true, more instances of lawless violence &C.
curing here, than in the well ordered king
doms of western Europe, but it is not just to
conclude from thence that brutality is one
Of our national characteristics If those who
judge us so harshly were disposed to do US
justice, they would, while taking account of the
number of crimes perpetrated in the UNITED
STATES, consider also the circumstances under
which they are committed. When these are duly
weighed we believe our transatlantic knsmen
will be forced to the conclusion that we are
entitled TO a vast deal of credit for behaving as
we'll as we do. 1t must be remembered that as
nation, we have scarcely had time to settle down
into the staid and quiet habits which distinguish
the larger portion of the population of the old
world. Having ample room in which to exercise all
our energies active spirit decomposition has been
infused into the national life, and has made us an
exctable and restless people. We have individ-
ually been habituated to the handling of arms
from our youth, and have never felt the restraints
which the hourly presence of authority imposes
on men elsewhere. The stranger may travel from
| New Y DIRK to ST. Louis or New Orleans and, with
the exception of few policemen in some of the
larger cities, he will see nothing to remind him
of the existence Of a government or laws. A few
sheriffs und constables represent, in different
States, the costly and powerful establishments,
civil and military, which are necessary in
other countries, to the preservation of the public
peace. We literally govern ourselves. There is
no other nation on the earth which, similarly
situated, could challenge comparison with ours.
Let the armies of France and England be dis
banded and the representatives of the law be re-
duced in number, until, in proportion to the
|
this country, and scenes of violence and
anarchy, such as would find no parallel here,
would soon usurp in those lands, the place
| of order. When we reflect how little nine
tenths Of the people of our Republic rely upon
the authorities to protect them from sudden vio-
lence, we look with grati6ed surprise at the gen.
eral security in which they live. If we were the
halfsavage race that many persons in Europe are
pleased to imagine u.s. hundred outrages would
have been furnished to the English press for every
one it has heretofore recorded. If the character
OF people is to be so hastily judged by the ini-
quties done in its midst, qaite sure of being
able to make out very ugly case against the vir
tuous islanders who are so fond of preaching JUS
tice and humanity to us. Without instituting
any very minute comparison between the criminal
statistics of England and the United States, we
think an examination of the conduct of the Brit
ish in India would enable us to present facts
enough to the world to justify us-on the princi-
pies applied by them to us-in pronouncing them
to be nation of savages. Such crueties as were
inflicted on those luckess Hindoos have not yet
disgraced our national name. We all remember
how the sepoys were blown from the mouths of
the cannon, and how remorselessly they were COM
PEELED to suffer other fearful punishments. 1t
was not merely that they were made to pay the
penalties of the crimes they had committed, but
hundreds OF them were slaughtered to satiate the
vengeance of their conquerors. Ever since the
Indian war ended, additional instances of inexcu-
sable outrage have been published, as each new
account of the mutny has been written by those
who witnessed its course. The diary of Mr.. Rus
SELL, the celebrated special correspondent of The
Times, is the latest book on the subject, and we
here give two extracts, as specimens of the many
hundreds OF similar passages, in which the nara
tives of the war abound
"After the Fusileers had got to the gateway Cash
mere boy came towards the post leading blind and
aged man, and throwing himself feet of an officer
asked for protection. That officer, informed by
his comrades, drew his revolver snapped at the
wretched suppliants head. The cried shame on
him. Again he pulled the trigger-agan the cap missed
again he pulled and once the weapon refused its
task The fourth timethrce had he time relent-the
gallant officer succeeded and the boys fe-bood flowed
at his feet amid the indignation and the oucrie of his
menl"
Some of the sepoys still alive and they were
mercully killed. but for or other which cou
the sandy plain outside the house he pulled by
legs to a convenient place, where he held down
preked in the face and body by the bayonet of
the sodery whilst others collected fuel for small pyre
and when all was ready-the roasted alive =
There were Engshmen looking on, than officer
saw 1t. No one offered to interferel'' ....
Such are the stories which Mr.. RUSSELL and
Others relate to about the officers and soldiers
of the British army in India. We may probably
. be reminded of the circumstances under which
these things were done-of the tortures and butch
cries to which the sepoys had subjected the wives
and children of the English residents The Time.
dwelt upon these wrongs, when it denounced the
manifestation of anything like pity for the revolted
Hindoos as maudlin or reasonable 1t did moi
think Fnglishmen brutal when they turned SC
ferociously upon their former slaves But for the
lawless and savage Americans who murdered one
OF JoHa Browns men without the form of trial
and who have escorted supposed abolitionists ou
of their respective States, civilized England has nc
federation. Our Southern people on whom ar
instruction might have burst, at any hour, and
whose families might have suffered the awful
calamites which attend a serve war, have
deported themselves like barbarians, accord
, ing to The Times, when they have
banished or imprisoned known abolitionists Oh
their suspected emisaries. But when brave Brit
sh officers have been known to blow out thu
brains of Cashmere boys or see sepoys roasted
IL uoeS not occur u tIal candlu journal 10 suppose
that all England was degraded by such acts to thu
rank of an uncivilized nation When Englishmer
commit crimes, only the offending individuals ar,
held responsible, but all the Americans, who dc
diabolical things, are taken as 'fair specimens O
'their countrymen," and The Times, so con
sidering them, lugubriously laments what it states
to he the fact that our 'savageness of temper" il
increasing year by year. and that we are becoming
singuarly addicted to violence and cruelty.
LECTURES To-NIGHT-The attention of our readers
is called to the second lecture of the course now il
process of delivery, for the benefit of the Church
of the Ascension, the subject for this evening being
Selections from Lectures and Addresses" by the
? Rev. Noah Hunt Schepck A. NJ Rector of Eman