The Press. — 1855-11-24 (London, England)

STANLEY& ...  OUR CIVILISATION IN THE EAST. IT is a standing topic of reproach against us by foreign nations that we are too much a people of professions, practising very little those high principles which we so perpetually preach. That there is some foundation for the charge it is impossible to deny, and it is, therefore, doubly incumbent on those of us who believe in our mission of civilisation and enlightenment to root out from among ourselves all cause of offence. To leave flagrant abuses in our own system unnoticed while playing the monitor so pragmatically to the rest of the world, would be to destroy at once all hope of usefulness, and to sink from being leaders in the van of progress into the position of a parcel of political Tartuffes. Holding these views, from which we think that no man of earnest truthfulness will dissent, we cannot but record our strongest protest against an act of the grossest barbarism lately perpetrated with the sanction of the Government of Madras. It is an act calculated to degrade us to the level of the lowest of the natives of India whom it has been our destiny to conquer, or even lower; for the most debased of them do not extend their atrocities to the dead. The act we protest against is as follows, and we are sure that the recital of it will call up the same feelings in the breasts of our readers which we do not hesitate to say are felt by our• selves. It appears, then, that the Moplahs who lately murdered Mr. CONOLLY have for the last twelve or fifteen years been perpetually guilty of outbreaks against that collector's authority —outbreaks which have been always accompanied by bloodshed, and which, have, therefore, very properly been put down by the sword. As such outbreaks seem to have been unheard of before that Gentleman went to Malabar, it may be inferred that there must have been something very galling in his system of administration to produce such effects. A wise Government would, therefore, have instituted some more searching inquiry into his acts there than the Madras Government has done. However, that is a point into which we shall not enter at present. If the Moplahs thought fit to resort to force to effect those objects the accomplishment of which they should have sought for by legitimate means, the only course for the authorities was to recur to the same alternative for their repression, and the responsibility of the lives thus sacrificed lay on the Moplahs' heads. So far, therefore, the Government of Madras had the feeling of the public entirely on its side. In an evil hour, however, it allowed exasperation to get the mastery over all other considerations, and descended to carry its vengeance beyond the grave. The Moplahs, it must be remembered, are a Mahomedan people, who, like all Mahomedans, have an extreme respect for the dead. Their interments are accompanied by prayers over the corpse not very dissimilar to those in use among Christian men. Iu them they consign the soul of the departed to the merciful protection of its Maker, and the body to its mother earth, pending the general resurrecrection, in which, in common with ourselves, they hope to rise again. Of all the points of the Mahomedan religion, that of the sanctity of the grave is the one which is the most deeply felt. This may be seen by the vast and beautiful cemeteries in the neighbourhood of Mahomedan cities, it being held a sacrilege to  P