The Canton times. (Canton, Miss.) 1893-1906, 1895-01-11


ment, present The fight of this one
family from Delhi merely to illustrate
/ the desperation of the times. The fact
was that the Scpoys had taken posses
sion of the city of Delhi, and they were,
with all their artillery, fighting back
the Europeans who were on the outside
and numbering all the Europeans. who
were inside. The city of Delhi has
circulated wall on three sides, wall
51s miles long, and the fourth side of
the city is defended by the river Jum-
ma. In addition to these two defenses
of wall and water there were 10000
Sepoys, all armed. Twelve hundred
British soldiers were to take that city.
Nicholson, the immortal general, COM
manded them, and you must visit his
grave before you leave Delhi. He fell
leading his troops. He commanded
them after being mortally wounded
You will read this inscription on his
tomb
John Nicholson, who led the as
sault of Delhi, but fell in the hour of
victory, mortally wounded, and died
23d September, 1857, aged IS years.
With the guns and men Gen. Mich
olson could muster he had laid siege
to this walled city filled with devils.
What fearful odds! Twelve hundred
British troops uncovered by any
military works, to take city sur
rounded by firm and high masonry, on
the top of which were ia guns and de-
Tended by 10000 foaming Sepoys. A
larger percentage of troops fell here
than in any great battle 1 happen to
know of. The Crimean percentage OF
the fallen was II. 4s, but the percentage
of Delhi was 37.9. Yet that city must
be taken, and it can only be taken by
such courage as had never been record
ed in all the annals of bloodshed. Ev-
cry charge of the British regiments
against the walls and gates had been
beaten back. The hyenas of Hindoo-
ism and Mohammedanism howled over
the walls, and the English army could
do nothing but bury their own dead.
But at this gate / stand and watch an
exploit that makes the page OF history
tremble with agitation.
This city has ten gates, but the most
famous is the one before which we now
stand, and it is called Cashmere gate.
Write the words in red ink because OF
the carnage. Write them in letters OF
light for the illustrious deeds. Write
them in letters of black for the bereft
and the dead. Will the world ever
forget that Cashmere gate? Lieut.
Salkeld and Home and Sergts. Bur-
CESS Carmichael and Smith offered to
take bags of powder to the foot OF that
gate and set them on fire, blowing open
the gate, although they must die in
doing it. There they go just after
sunrise, each one carrying sack con-
tanning "a pounds of powder, and doing
this under the fire of the enemy.
Lieut.. Home was the first to jump
into the ditch, which still remains be-
fore the gate. AS they go, one by one
| falls under the shot and shell. One of
the MORALLY wounded as he falls
hands his sack of powder with box of
lucifer matches to another, telling him
to fire the sack, when, with an explo-
sion that shook the earth for 20 miles
around, part of the Cashmere gate was
blown to fragments, and the bodies OF
some of these heroes were so scattered
they were never gathered for funeral
or grave or monument. The British
army rushed in through, the broken
gate. and although six days OF hard
fighting were necessary before the city
was in complete possession the crisis
was past. The Cashmere gate open
the capture of Delhi and all it con
tanned of palaces and mosques and
treasures was possible.
Lord Napier, of Magdala, of whom
Mr.. Gladstone spoke to me so affection
ately when was his guest at Harvard
en-, Eng, has lifted monument neal
this Cashmere gate, with the names OF
the men who there fell inscribed there
on. That English lord, who had seer
courage on many battlefield, visited
this Cashmere gate and felt that the
men who opened it with the loss o.
their own lives ought to be commend
GRATED, and hence this cenotaph. But
after all, the best monument is the
gate itself, with the deep gouge'
in the brick wall on the lef
side made by two bonbshells
and the wall above torn by ten bomb
shells, and the wall on the righ
side defaced and scraped and plowet
and quilted by all styles of long reach
ing weaponry. Let the words Cash
mere gate" as synonym for patriot
ism and fearlessness and self sacrifice
go into all history, all art, all litera
ture, all time, all eternity! My friends
that kind of courage sanctified will We
take the whole earth for God. Indeed
the missionaries now at Delhi, toilins
amid heathenism and fever and choi
avn and far away from home and com