The Sun. — 1860-04-20 (London, England)

THE BOMBAY MAIL.  By extraordinary express, in anticipation of the Overland Mail, we have received our letters and papers from Bombay down to the 27th ult. The following is from the Bombay Gazette of that date :  Mr. Wilson's exhaustive speech on th e introduction. of a paper currency has been received in all parts of India with the same marked favour which was shown to his financial statement. Of course, the cancelling their privilege of issuing notes has had a depressing cif** on :the Presidency :Banks ; but the genera confidence in the wisdom of the proposed change is so great that the shares m the Bombay Bank, which at first fell 10, have since recovered 5 per cent.  The numerous friends of Sir James Outram will be happy to learn that a letter has been received from him dated the 17th March, in which he announces his recovery from the severe illness under which he recently laboured, and his resumption of official duties. His own words are "I am perfectly well now, and have returned to work." The sentence of death on Khan Buhadoor Khan has been confirmed, and he will be hanged in front of the Kotwali at Bareilly, on the very spot where he sat and watched the murder of his European victims.  Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Somerset, K.C.8., quits the shores of India to-day, after having held for upwards of five years the Command-in-Chief of the Bombay army. With his retirement ends the General's active military career. The case of James Hunt, formerly sergeant-major in the 14th Dragoons, who shot Cornet Browne of the same regiment at Kirkee, near Poona, for seducing his wife, has been tried in the Supreme Court of Bombay. According to the evidence given by Browne and two of his fellow officers, on the 27th of January last Hunt rode up to the cornet's house, and, asking for a private interview, was taken by Browne -into his bedroom. Of all that followed we have two vertions, neither of which is it possible to corroborate, for the prisoner and the prosecutor alone knew what happened. Browne's statement is, in brief, that Hunt told him he knew his guilt by finding one of his letters and by his wife's confession, and called upon him to give up any letters from Mrs. Hunt he had in his possession. There was some more conversation, in the course of which Hunt drew out a pistol, and said he had come over for the purpose of shooting his betrayer, and he did not know whether he should not do so yet. At last, on Browne owning that Lieut. Beamish probably was aware of what had been going on, Hunt raised the pistol and shot him. Hunt's story varies from this, in asserting that Browne used taunting and insolent expressions, laughing at Hunt when he asked for the " satisfaction of a gentleman," and saying he " gloried" in having seduced:Mrs. Hunt. Browne swore distinctly on the trial that he had not said a word during the interview to provoke the prisoner. The counsel for Mr. Hunt made rather a weak defence, arguing that it was possible the pistol -went off by. accident. The jury found the prisoner guilty of intent to do grievous bodily harm, and strongly recommended him to mercy on account of the extreme provocation he had received. The Chief Justice, Sir Mathew Sause, premising that the lightness of the punishment he was about to award was due to his belief that the act of the prisoner in firing off the pistol had not been premeditated, sentenced him on Monday morning, the 26th inst., to be imprisoned for a year in the county gaol, one week's confinement in each quarter to be solitary. There is great popular sympathy for Mr. Hunt, and a memorial has already been drawn up, praying for a remission of his sentence."