Northern Times. — 1857-09-26 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

ESCAPE OF LAY-NUNS AT MEERUT.  The Courrier de Lyon gives the following account of the dangers incurred by several French lay-nuns in India during the late disturbances :—The religious establishment of Jesus-et-Marie de Fourviere had several of its sisterhood imperilled at Meerut, Delhi, Sealcote, acd Agra by the Indian insurrection. It is only by the last mail that intelligence has been received respecting them in letters written to their superior, and which show that a portion of them at least have escaped. All these holy woman were at the heat of schools for young girls, English and native. Those who were at Meerut succeeded in escaping through the conflict, murderers, and conflag .ation with a part ot their pupils, some English ladies, and about fifty males, officers and civilians, tea valley in the mountains of Thibet, where they are, it app are, in tolerable security, for the party, being well armed, is strong enough to defend against the insurgents the defile leading to their asylum. The flight from Sealkote was marked by m st dramatic incidents The evening before the rising, some of the natives, through gratitu le for she attention and kindness which the sisters had always shown to their children, came secretly to inform them they would do well to leave the place as promptly as possible with their pupils. as the insurrection was to commence the next morning at break of day, and the insurgent, had resolved to k.ll every European. The sisters at once procurcd cars, and loafed them with their properly and with their youngest pupils, whose weakness would have retarded their precipitate flight. Then profiting by the shades of n;ght., they left the town for a firt so-ne begues distant, where they hoped to find refege. Unfortunately whether it was that the warning given them was too late, or that the fugitives had not harried on with sufficient rapidity, or that the natives had advanced the moment of the insurrecdon, the sisters were overtsken, when about half way, by a troop of the insurgents, who on finding their convent abandoned had pursued them The poor sisters, on seeing this horde of miscreants approaching, abandoned their cars and baggage in the middle of the road to be pillaged, and hurried away t m take refuge in an isolated house which stood near. But their pursuers soon surrounded the building, and bursting in murdered, in presence of the poor sisters and the children, several English persons, women and men, who had also hurried to the house for safety. They then rushed at the sisters, and with horri: le imprecations threatened to make them and their pupils share the same fate, if they did not at once declare where their property was to be found. The unfortunate women protested that they had nothing in the world but what they, had left in the cars on the high road, and that they willingly gave up that property. As, however, other pillagers 'had already carried off whatever was prec ous feem the cars the insurgents in the h-tuse were about to execute their threat of killing every human being in 'the building, when a voice cried out that the public treasures had been found. They then rushed from the house to obtain their share in the booty, and the sisters, without loosing a moment, placed the youngest children on their shoulders, and taking the where by the hand, proceeded as rapidly as they could towards the fort, which they at last reached and obtained a shelter in the midst of other fugitives of every age and condition. It is impossible to praise too highly the devotedness of these poor women, who risked without hesitation their own lives to save those of the children confided to their care.