The Portland daily press., 1897-09-01
About India.
Boston Transcript. J

ifontler, the skirmishes between the local
lesies In the Khyber Pass and their kins-
49, ana the fighting in the Swat valley.
oeen eagerly seized upon by many
ican newspapers as ian occasion to
pay uhelr ignorance of India not to
Do neglected. One paper which ought to
'1"rn better, or else cease to print matter
aoout India, informed its readers that the
present troubles already equalled the
great mutiny of 1857, and several others
persist In treating of India as if it were
one country with one people. The mutiny
u 1907 was a military revolt, the enlisted
strength and the native officers of the
Bengal army rising against their British
| commanders. Though the mutiny had
given forth premature chickering's as early
| as January, 1857, it did not blaze forth
lhoo lame until May 10 at Meerut. 1t
swept over vast tract and was not
e4tlngulshed for nearly eighteen
months and indeed it was not before
may 1859, that it's extinction was formal
" proclaimed. At the..time of the out
break the native forces in India in the
orl1lsh pay were divided into three
armies, those of Bengal, Bombay and
MADRAS, corresponding to the three great
'presidencies. -
LII gives one good idea Of the area of
1hdla, and Of the racial diversities of it's
people, to remember that vast as was the
region swept by the revolt, neither the
Doinpay nor the Madras army was untrue
to its colors.
Indeed, the English received most i'm
portant assistance from Indian natives,
notaply the Sikhs, in putting down the
mutinous Sepoys Here and there, more
over, In Bengal itself, the Sepoys were
divided, and no inconsiderable element
refusing to go with their mutinous com
rades, cast their lot with the English.
Today the hostilities which are attracting
ene world S attention in India are either
6etWeen Afriiis, in British pay and of
doubtful loyalty, and their wild kinsmen
who own no mans sway, or are the
EFFORTS OF people of recently conquered
regions, like the Chitral, to regain their
| lost. independence. In physical proper
| tlons, compared with the mutiny of 1857
today's outbreak is so far but the strik
| Ing OF match to the eruption Of vol
cano.
The diversity of race sentiment found
IN India. which cleyerly played upon has
been great factor in the preservation of
British ascendancy, does not appear other
wise than what it Is, a natural and inevi-
| table condition to those who realize that
| India is not country but continent.
1t Is inhabited by races as widely different
| IN ways of thought and life as the Rus
SLAMS and the Portuguese, and as diff
cult to bring into any sympathetic ALI
ance. The oultivators of the plains of
lower Bengal, q docile, peaceful and peace
loving race, have no other feeling than
dislike for the hardy, martial people of
| the upper Punjaub. The Mohammedan
despises the Hindoo, and the Hindoo fears
| the Mohanmedan. The Buddhists are
apart from both, and the Sikhs do not
care button for any other people. The
Animistics have their own standards.
| There Is no such thing among the native
races of India as an Indian sentiment, a
| feeling of unity for India, similar to that
which binds Protestant Germans and
Catholic Germans together for the safety
| likely ever TO be brought about among
peoples of SO widely divergent religious
| opinions.
| Their differences are more than theo-
| logical they are social and political, one
race voting the other unclean and not to
be associated with without defilement
| To the devout Hindoo the idea Of the IN
| checked ascendancy of the Mohammedans
| is maddening. Submissive as are the
Hindoos, they would fight to the last
against an Mohammedan overlord who
should seek to make his suzerainty any
| thing beyond figure ofssspeech. A study
| of the population of India tabulated BY
religious belief is the best corrective of
| the theory that they are about to unite
against England to work the overthrow
OF British rule. Here are the figures as
set forth in the census Of 1891: