The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1833-04-23 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

SLAVERY IN INDIA.  We beg to call the attention of our readers to the following interesting extract of a letter from a gentleman stationed at "Camp Ellichapoor," (India,) to his uncle in Edinburgh, dated the "'24th October, 1832," and received the 9th April, 1833 :  "No people in the world, I imagine, live upon less or lighter food than the inhabitants of this part of the country, but this does not save them from the sharp sufferings of famine_ and a smaller quantity of rain than usually falls during the Monsoon will frequently produce great misery. Along the coast on the south-west of Calcutta, it is said many have died from want of food, and the scarcity is so great all around the country where I am situated, that the commandinc, officer issued an order lately, ` prohibiting people from purchasinge children, however anxious their parents might be to dispose of them as slaves. Slavery. is not unknown in this country. Generally speaking, a slave is a favoured domestic of his master; but they are often bought and kept by bands of dancing girls ; and slaves belong ing to these people are very young females, who are trained and matured in every vicious practice.' " We were surprised by a proclamation about two weeks ago from the Mahratta Rajah of Gwalier, setting free of all slaves, and denouncing slavery " I dare say you have heard of Mr. Wolf, the Jewish Missionary, who, after being robbed in Persia, made his appearance in the north-west of India, and issued congratulatory and farewell addresses to us all. He has turned his course towards the mountains of Thibet, but consoled us with the assurance that the Millenium will commence in 1848. "Thus it appears that free servants in India may be beaten at pleasure, and even to the death ; for there is no law to prevent it or to punish offenders ! Slaves, on the other hand, who are of some value—representing at least the purchase-money that was given for them—are, on this account, as well as from motives of humanity and attachment (to which-the writer of the letter evidently attributes it), likely to be a more favoured class of domestics with their masters. What do our over-sensitive East Indians, connected with the Anti-slavery Society, say to this ? or with what consistency can they reprobate a state of things in the West, which exists also in the East—however ignorant they may be of the fact, or however loth to confess it— and that, too, accompanied with crimes of the deepest die, even murder itself, which no law has been framed to prevent ? Will it be denied that in India multitudes of the natives are constantly hired and employed on the Lord's ,day, just as they are on other days of the week, to labour at the public works, under the superintendence of British officers? The most intelligent of them have acknowledged it to be a common practice, and, what is more, have attempted to defend it. And on what principle ? Why, that the natives are Heathens—strangers to Christianity and its institutions—that Sunday is no holiday with them—that their own religion prescribes the observance of so many holidays—that if the Christian Sabbath were superadded to them, they could not earn a subsistence, and must starve ;—that for these reasons, it would be the height of inhumanity and cruelty to insist on their observance of this divine institution, until they shall have become Christians ! Leaving this argument as we found it, we would simply ask, how would the man be treated by our Anti-slavery demagogues, who should dare to apply any part of it to the 170,000 out of the entire slave population of Jamaica, who are still Heathens, and who, because they are Heathens, choose to work their grounds for the sake of profit on the Lord's day ? But we beg pardon: with certain persons of fastidious tastes, " sauce for the goose is nu longer sauce for the gander."