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MFD I A, ¦ AND TTSTDIAN PROGRESS.
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AHITHOPHEL. If the rebellion was not fer...
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LATEST INDIAN INTELLIGENCE. The Bombay 1...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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A Grand Ducal Campaign.—-The Inhabitants...
as described to me , reminds your correspondent of a similar one he witnessed , together with the present Lord Lyons , in the spring of last year at Salerno There a half-famished man , fit only for the hospital , ' roped to 200 others , fell faulting m the mud . Wo approached and saw the blood gushing out of his mouth . A gendarme cut the rope , the wretched link was detached , dragged across the street , and pitched on the back of a companion ; « o , in a pouring rain , he was taken back to his prison . What became of him I know not , but Francisco the 6 th insthis onl
Esposito died on the road on ., y comforter the priest who had thus unexpectedly presented himself . In his pockets were found a few copper coins , a rosary of the Virgin , formed of small pearls , and some letters , full of affection , which Avere sent to his mother . Were this a solitary case of barbarity I might let it pass , but it is only one of many that have happened and happen continually under the irresponsible system of a police who seem to gloat over human suffering . . . The armament in
Italian Volunteers . — " Parma / ' a recent correspondent from Florence tells us , " proceeds in a slow and slovenly manner . We have here about 400 or 500 volunteers , most of whom are ill-clad and unarmed , and yet the town swarms ¦ with lazy , hulking fellows , who could be put to no better use thanenlisting them . I do not know whether this scanty armament arises from the lack of good will on the part of the recruits or from want of good management in those who have undertaken to organise them . " An unprejudiced traveller , who has seen both the Duchies and the Romagnas , gives no more cheering account of those districts . Here in Florence I see numberless uniforms , but . for the
last month at least , I may honestly say , I have seen no regular troops of any description at their drilL Those famous gentlemeu-rhussars , who were to be 150 , and had dwindled to twenty-five when I last mentioned them , only mustered seven at the grand review of the National Guard on Sunday last ! French Meddling in India . — -The following has appeared in a French paper : —' ¦ " We are assured that M . de Sercey , who was sent by the French Government on a secret mission to India , has drawn , in a report addressed to M . W . alewski ,, a very gloomy picture of the situation ofthat country . " The object the French Government can have in seeking information , by' means of a special and secret agent , concerning our Indian possessions , is not very clear , and must remain matter of conjecture . From another source it is confirmed that a
M ; de Sercey has been pursuing investigations India . To many persons it will doubtless appear rather extraordinary that a French agent should have been sent upon such a mission . The . choice of that agent niay also be considered strange , although that is a matter which concerns the French Government alone . M . de Sercey was formerly a lieutenantcolonel in the French army , but peculiar and very unpleasant circumstances removed him from its ranks . He had , however , the advantage of having been , in former years , a particular friend of Count Walewski , to whom he was indebted for his recent employment on this rather equivocal service . Paris
Can it be True ?—The letter of a . correspondent contains the following assertion , which , for the sake of suffering humanity , we trust is true . " Every dog has his day ; and it is really believed that crinoline , after all , is not eternal ; the patent office statistics are of some value in the matter , and by them we find that , in 1855 , there were four patents taken out in connexion with this invention , in 1856 sixteen , in 1857 thirty , in 1858 thirty-seven I and , during the first seven months of the present year , only thirteen . The thing seems , then , to have passed its perihelion , and to be retiriug into obscurity . In fact , some fashionable dames hero have almost entirely discarded it , in order , as they say , that they may not bo mistaken for their maids—aud other kintls ^ of people . This is not quite a satisfactory argument , us a lady ought not to be afijaid of such errors ; but , with an evil of such gigantic
proportions , we cannot afford to choose the moans of its removal ; so we bless our stars that the egregious folly has at length become apparent . " The Paris Boulevards . — -For some years past tho trees on the Boulevards of Paris and in the pub-Ho gardens havo suffered from disease . This year the evil has been increased by the unusual dryness of the summer . The horse-phostnuts and lime trees have suffered most . The magnificent" trees which line the walks in the Jardin des Plantes are now stripped of their leaves , as if it were tho month of December , and some of them arc dead , A great number of the trees are reduced to the state of skeletons . The garden of the Tuileries has not boon better treated . The terrace on the side of the Rue Qo Rlvoli is nearly deprived of all shade , and io the masses in the centre of tho garden the eye is offended by quantities of dried branches andwltnorod foUago . ' *
Mfd I A, ¦ And Ttstdian Progress.
MFD I A , ¦ AND TTSTDIAN PROGRESS .
Ahithophel. If The Rebellion Was Not Fer...
AHITHOPHEL . If the rebellion was not fertile in great men on the native side it developed an amount and a kind of Character the full extent and nature of which we cannot understand or sympathise with . For a short time it afforded a career to men who , under the Moguls , would have ruled courts , filled thrones , and commanded victorious armies , but whose restless longing for the kind of activity dear to the Asiatic had found vent only in litigation and debauchery . Rajahs whose warlike tastes had manifested themselves only in the glitter of a liveried troop of servants ; zemindars , who had never been able to claim a more honourable victory than a triumph over lattials ; poor adventurers , who had found Dacoitee , violence and murder the
Thugge , and other forms of only means for the exercise of their talents ; even traders and menial servants , who had wasted their warlike vis in deception and chicanery , suddenly found a field for the exercise of their various powers ha the revolt of 1857 . We , whose whole nature _ and training unfit us to judge of the Asiatic , looked at the insurgent mass from . the outside , and did not stop to fathom their varied motives , to understand their different temptations to rise up . against us , to observe the play of their passion and the direction of their hate . We had suffered—suffered as no nation before us ever did our power had to be re-established , our wrongs avenged , and there was little time . But now that the storm is over and the rebel fleet has been shattered to pieces by its fury , we can caknly watch the wrecked fragments , as the ocean , no longer troubledcasts them up upon the shore .
, Many , now beyond the frontier , will no doubt escape us , though disease and starvation will have them sooner or later . There are Nana Sahib , and Azimoolah Khan , his minister , once a khitmutgar . There are Mummoo Khan , the Begum ' s paramour , and Dabee Bux , the Rajah of Gonda , and Bala Rao , reported as recently dead , and a score of Talookdars with their retainers , like feudal barons of old . The Central India leaders , Furzund Ali , Runmust Singh , Burjore Singh , Feroze Shah , and Rao Sahib , have yet to be hunted down . The trials of the last of the Moguls and the Nawab of Furruckabad have revealed facts of which a skilful novelist might well avail himself . If we could have looked at the rebel forces from within when they were at the height of their triumph , we might have found materials of which to form an epic as varied in its characters as the Iliadand as dark in its gloom as the Inferno .
, One who may with truth be called the Ahithophel of the rebellion was tried in March last , before Mr . George Campbell , the judicial commissioner of Oude , and Major Barrow , and the papers have just been made public . Moul vie Fuzul Huk , not to be confounded with another notable scoundrel of the same name , who was a chuckladar and leader of the rebel troops , was a leading adviser of the rebel Court of Delhi in 1857 , and of the rebel chiefs in Oude in 1858 . He was born in Oude , of a family which owed everything to the British , and he himself occupied a good position in their service . Leaving it he filled offices of some honour and importance in Oude , Rampore , and Ulwar , so that he became well known among the natives all over Upper . In'dia . Leaving the
Court of Ulwar , when the mutiny began he went to Delhi . His time had come . He threw himself and Ms fortunes at once boldly into the vortex of revolt , and took his chance . Of his conduct in Delhi , in the , eventful months of its siege , clear evidence was notproduced . When the city fell he seems to have attached himself to the Oudo party , and especially to Muramoo IUian . A sort of rebel council , termed by themselves " Urbab Shora , " or Masters of Consultations , and known by tho English as the " Cutoherry Parliament , " was held ntBondce , and Moul vie Fuzul Huk was its leading spirit . He was high in tho confidence of the chieft , and at once ambitious , wise and bigoted , was always conuulted . by thorn .
It was this class of men who prolonged the contest and increased its crueltios . It was this class who began tho struggle , as in tho case of Ahmed Alee Shah , tho Fyzabad Moulviei who , from Arcot , his native place , regularly preached a crusade against the Christian , a Jehad , a holy war , from city to city , and station to station , till ho reached Fyzabad , in February , 1857 , and offered armed resistance to tho magistrate . Of this olass also were the Moulvie at Allahabad , and tho fanatics of Hyderabad , who evon yet keep tho city in commotion . If tho actual eoldler , caught with arms in his hands , reeking with Christian blood , deserved death , doubly so did the class who used the soldier as a machine for their own ends . Tula Fuzul Huk " quoted and perverted
texts from the Koran , insisted that the persons who had served the English were apostates , and their death was required by the law , and even went so far as to tell the rebel chief that if he spared them he was himself a ¦ criminal in the eye of God . " Found guiity of having been an instigator of rebellion and a propounder of doctrines calculated to encourage murder , he was sentenced as a State prisoner to be transported for life , and to the confiscation of his property . Considering his advanced age , his position in life , and his character as an Oude subject , and for many years past a servant of native states , he was not treated as an ordinary convict .
The teaching of the Koran can produce only one kind of fruit , and we see it in Fuzul Huk . Like the Papacy , circumstances may seem to modify and pretences to cloak its unsparing and blood-thirsty exclusiveness . But it will change only when it perishes . Well for us if the rebellion , which has disclosed a plot against Christianity , extending from Cairo to Borneo , have the same effect in leading us manfully to declare the truth as the Armadahad , when with its broken timbers it shattered the Papal League . — Friend of India .
Latest Indian Intelligence. The Bombay 1...
LATEST INDIAN INTELLIGENCE . The Bombay 1 Mail has arrived with letters * and papers to the 20 th ult . From the summary of the Bombay Gazette , we extract the following information : —The Hon . Mr . Bruce has applied to the Governor General for troops ; but where are they to come from ? Having been presented with their discharge , about 10 , 000 men are at this moment on the point of leaving India . Every day we hear ot the withdrawal of large bodies of soldiers from their regiments , and the army itself is rapidly dissolving away . In the Bengal regiments 5 , 80 C men haye taken their discharge , about 2 , 300 are expected to embark from Madras , and 2 , 100 from Bombay .
From the districts traversed by the rebels we have scarcely any news . If we may credit some letters that have been published in the Bengal papers , they are almost in a state of starvation . They prowl about in bands of from 50 to 500 , and are dispersed over the lower ranges south of Nepaul . A letter from Rohilcund in the Bengal Hurkaru mentions that Bala Rao , brother to the Nana , Hurdut Sing , Talookdar of Bhowne , hear Baraitch , ebabad have died from the
and the Nawab of Nuje effects of the climate near Dhoker in the Nepaul territories , somewhere hear Boohwall , where the Begum is . The Nana is suffering from fever . The Begum still holds out bravely , and , it is said , will give us some trouble , should the rebels succeed in getting out from their present abode into Tirhoot arid the Santhal Purgunnahs . This is unlikely , however , as they are at present doing their utmost to avoid the plains , where they are sure to come in
collision with our troops . Several arrests have been effected in Oude and Bareilly , and the prisoners are accused , some of having taken part in the massacre of Europeans during the mutiny , and others of attempting to seduce soldiers from their duty . But they are not all dealt with as they deserve . Some of the rebels lately caught at Bareilly have been transported . One Reng Rao was sent by the Nana as an emissary to Hyderabad , where he was arrested and sentenced ; the Governor-General has remitted capital punishment and commuted the sentence to transportation for life .
A little before the festival of the Mohurrum , the Punjab was in a stato of excitement m consequence of some rumours , more pr less *** fS &**™ L regarding disaffection among the Mahometans- ot Sqalkote , Umritsur , Lahore , and Jullundur . A fukeer , a religious beggar , was first arrestedI m the B « ± jr Ara . si = ft was 3 ss g ^ ¥ bmzF * si ££ meat for a few months . It is said that 5 th Madras Cavalry , chiefly comnosod o ? Mahometans , threatened to create military diaturSncos at Hyderabad , similar to thoeo that took n aco Si the Nortiweat Provinces , if the Govorn-£ nn ? , lfd not take from them the greased cartridge * Jot ria
which word lately served out to them by m am - oardwore put up in the public streets which showed Sat ¦ T movement iruV foot for ^ uhL ^ H sword in defence of their roligion , and killing all the ^ Ch ristians of tho place . These feats givei us a glimpse under the surface of Mahometan pdl « tag society . The festival of tho Mohurrum passed off very quietly at Bombay , but in the Doooan anj elsewhere groat discontent at tho position they \ UolcI under the Britiah Government has been openly expressed . "
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 24, 1859, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24091859/page/11/
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