The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1890-08-02 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

LITERARY EXTRACTS.  AN INDIAN MUTINY  Java remained in quiet possession of Britan until April, 1815, when the native officers and privates of a regiment of Bengal Light Infantry oonspired to murder their European officers, and .11 other white men they could lay hands on, to desert, subvert the British authority, and join the Javanese in effecting a revsilution. The real ssarce of this dark combination lay In a breach of faith committed by the Government. The conspirators were volunteers, who, contrary to the prejndioes of caste, had joined the expedition under Sir Samuel Achmuty, on condition of being restored to their country at the end of three years' service. This bargain was tyrannically and scandalously violated. The regiment was left in Java by the Indian authorities; and the sepoys, despairing of ever seeing their country and the temples of their gods, gave way, under a sense of wrong, to those vindictive passions which characterise the Bengalese, and the easily excited hatred of all Christians. "It is remarkable," says a writer, "how the sepoy has ever proved himself the same sanguinary monster, whether at Vellore, or Java, or Cawnpore. It is equally remarkable that, after such decided proofs of their readiness, men and officers, to assassinate their comrades and defenceless Europeans upon any provocation from the Government, that both the Government and British officers continued to trust them until the mutiny of 1857 and the horrid butcheries of Cawnpore."—From "CeueWs Illustrated History of India" for July.  HTPOCHONDRIASIS  Hypochondriasis may be said to consist °wentially of an exaggerated egotism. Its principle feature is mental depression occurring without adequate cause, and taking the shape of a conviction in the patient's mind that he is the victim of some serious bodily disease. It is a complaint that has been recognised from the earliest times, and has always been known as hypochondriasis or the hypochondriac disorder, and sometimes as the "spleen." It might aptly be described by the term "misery." It is not pain; bodily pain is not misery, for you often see patients cheerful, and even jocose, though daily racked with pains which might almost bring tears into your eyes to witness. Misery is worse than pain; it is a terrible infliction, as those who have experienced it know well. In this case there is no perversion of the understanding, such as frees the insane from the responsibility of moral agency. Indeed, the average intellectual capacity in hypochondriacs is not below but rather above the general standard. With. out any eufficent reason for such conduct, and without any signs of intellectual impairment the patient concentrates his attention on some particular organ of the body, and imagines that it is seriously diseased. He is constantly tormenting himself—and others, too, for the matter of that—by dwelling upon his miserable condition, and suffers from the incessant dread of the existence of some serious malady, with perhaps a fear of impending death or insanity. He may fulfil his ordinary duties creditably, but, as a rule, is preoccupied with his ON% n condition, to the exclusion of all other Interests and affections, and is ever writhing under the petty despotism of an imaginary evil. Many a hypochondriac might exclaim with Hamlet: —"I have of late (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises; and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this good. ly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most exellent canopy,the air look you—this brave overhanging firmament, this majestic roof fretted with golden fire —why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours." —From "lire Family Physician" for July.