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tabling or aiming at the somewhat ideal standard above indicated . In many respects a somewhat ideal standard at present ! The truth must bespoken . While there are comparatively few English in India who conciliate by their demeanour , there are also too many who do not edify by their example . This may appear a canting and impertinent truism , but it is not so if it can be shown that the present system of patronage tends to bring into the country , and to
produce and foster there , much vice and idleness that would not otherwise exist . And there is this most unnatural and dangerous feature in the position of the English in India , that whereas in ordinary society the incapable and the vicious must in due course of time , sink to their proper level , in the Indian services , with a little good luck and prudence , they may safely and securely float , and rise far above the highest point attainable by the ablest native .
General Jacob , five or six years ago , in his pamphlet on the Bengal Army , pointed out the mischievous results of the number of useless officers in the Regular Sepoy regiments . " The Englishman , " he said , " becomes too common to be held in proper and wholesome respect . He is seen holding no important position , but in the performance of trifling duties , which any native officer or noncommissioned officer could do equally well . He is often seen idling away his time in frivolous , or wasting his energies in vicious , pursuits . The prestige of the superior race is thus destroyed , while it too often happens that the European officer , haviner nothing important to occupy him , loses
somewhat of Ms own self-respect . " VVhat General Jacob wrote with such force and prescience regarding the decrease of the British officer ' s prestige in the Sepoy army , is equally applicable to every other branch of the public service in India . " We don't dislike the English Government , " said a most intelligent native of rank in a newly annexed province to me— " we don't dislike the English race ; but we can't endure the young English officers . Ignorant boys were not sent to domineer over us in former days . " The extent to which this rapidly growing ^ bitterness against English officers had spread would not have been credited , and would have been very
generally denied , but for the terrible disasters of 1857 which revealed the rankling sore . It may be said that I have throughout exaggerated the importance of this question ; that facilities of official advancement can little affect the bulk of a people under any Government , and least of all under a mild and just Government . But I distinctly deny that our civil administration , carried on as it is in a great degree by inexperienced young Englishmen , is anything like as just or as efficient as it ought to be , and as it would be if well-qualified natives were judiciously associated in it ; and I maintain that , through the fair exaction by Government of a high
qualification in the superior official ranks , we have ihe best prospect of extending education , of setting English ideas in circulation , and of instituting a community of interests and feelings between the governors and the governed . But it has often been said , and will still continue to be urged with some appearance of plausibility , that when we view the low standard of morality among the natives , and especially among those in Government employ , it is absurd and paradoxical to propose t o entrust more power and authority to those who so grossly abuse that which they already possess . In Tact , that the natives are not fit for
any high employment , but that when they prove themselves to be so , by the acquisition of knowledge and the manifestation of a higher sense of honour and public duty , they may be employed . Some people will go so far as to say that they cannot hope or expect tfiat the natives of India will over be fit to take a share in the government of their own country until they have been converted to the Christian religion . It appears to mo that this question may be very completely and very concisely answered and disposed of in its theological , its ethnological , and its historical aspeot , and on a
future ~ ooca 8 ion-this"may-be-attemptc , d . «^ A , t ,-presonti I will only urge that it is really diffloult to tjeliovo that any ono can seriously hope or oxpoofc education to spread among a people , when the most able and the most enlightened cannot obtain a reward , in either wealth , position , or influence , for all their labour and acquirements . Nor is it reasonable to expect honour and loyalty to spring up and flourish as the return for neglect , contempt , and humiliation . Hopeless exclusion and proscription will not produce a reformation , but something very different . E . V .
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244 THE LEAD EB . [ No . 416 , March 13 , 1885 .
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^ No telegraphic news has arrived from India during the prelent week ; but the full details of some of the actions recorded in the summaries of last week have been published in the daily papers . Of these we give a selection below . As soon as the news reached the Queen at Osborne of the arrival at Southampton , in the Pera steamer , of the wounded officers from India , her Majesty telegraphed to the Admiralty office at that port , requesting to be furnished with their names , and any other particulars respecting thern .
THE SIEGE OF LUCKNOW . Some particulars of the siege of Lucknow , not previously published , have been communicated to the Ti mes by a correspondent . We here read : — " Lieutenants Harmer , Charlton , and Cillery , of the 32 nd Regiment , were in Lucknow during the whole time it was besieged by the rebel force . According to their statements , all the accounts published of the horrors and miseries endured during the five months by the ladies , children , and the . whole of the garrison , fail in giving a full idea of the dreadful sufferings they had to endure . Lieutenants Charlton and Harmer were severely wounded soon after the commencement of the siege ; the first by a bullet in his head , which remained there until last Saturday week , when he pulled it out himself while on board the Pera . Lieutenant Harmer was struck by a round shot , which broke his leg . Lieutenant Chlery was not wounded , but suffered so much from cholera and paralysis that he was invalided home . Out of the twenty-three ofiicers of the 32 nd Regiment twelve were wounded and one died of cholera . Of the remaining ten , seven were wounded , and two of the remaining three were suffering from illness when the garrison was relieved . Lieutenant Knight , of the 90 th Light Infantry , was with his regiment in the Crimea , and proceeded with it to India . He formed one of the late General Havelock ' s relieving force at Lucknow , which city he entered on the 25 th of last September , and was severely wounded while assisting in taking two guns posted " in a narrow street . On the following day , while being carried to the Residency , he was cut off with twenty-five other wounded men by the enemy , every one of whom was killed but himself . A Sepoy had raised a ¦ weapon to kill him , when he managed to roll out of a dhoolie and crawl across a square . Then he crept from one ditch to another , and was again wounded while doing so , but eventually he regained a party of his own men . After remaining two mouths in Lucknow , Lieutenant Knight was relieved by Sir Colin Campbell , and ¦ with many others was sent down to Calcutta Captain Anderson , of the 25 th Regiment Native Infantry , was assistant-commissioner at Lucknow when the outbreak took place . His house was within the Residency enclosures , and was formed by Sir Henry Lawrence into an outpost , defended by a stockade , ditch , and mound . Here this officer , with ten men of the 32 nd and ten volunteers , successfully defended this small fortification from the daily and nightly attacks of the enemy during the whole siege . On one occasion during a day attack , the enemy penetrated the stockade of this daring little force , but every man forming the enemy ' s party was shot down before he could get out . Captain Anderson lost his wife and a child , who died from actual starvation Lieutenant Saunders , of the 84 th Regiment , when in the presence of Nana Sahib at Cawnpore , killed five men with his revolver , and aimed at the Nana , but the pistol missed fire . In rovenge , the Nana ordered him to be crucified . Hia hands and feet were cut off , and other atrocities wore porpotrated on him . " The following is an extract from a letter of one of the officers of the staff to a relation in Edinburgh : — " On Sir Colin Campbell ' s arrival at Alumbagh , on the Cawnpore road , ho received from Outram carefully copied plans of the city and its approaches , with minute descriptions of every building and every point at which Uo might expect resistance , arid o carefully prepared scheme of the operations by which , in Outram ' s opinion , he might best effect his entrance into the city . Outram also constructed a semaphore on the top of the Residency to enable him to communicate with Sir Colin , and prepared and furnished to him a code of signals . Sir Colin telegraphed by this semaphore that ho would follow out Outram ' s scheme of operations . Ho did follow them 5 and as soon as he advanced Outram commenced a most powerful diversion in his favour—blowing up mines , making sorties , storming positions , and bombarding and shelling the palace of Kasierbagh , in which the enemy were strongly posted , thereby immensely reducing the opposition Sir Colin mot with . Tho evacuation of the old' -garrl 8 on rall ~ of-Outrum ' 8 _ pl anui » g ^ a , nd _ fi ^ Q « M , tiojil was a feat probably unparalleled in tlio history of waran operation conducted so skilfully and eo noiselessly that for nine hours tho enemy wore Ignorant of it , and kept blazing away as usual at our old position . "
is all very well for Wilson , and he deserves it ; but fancy the disgust of . the Delhi field force in finding an order just out from the Governor-General , saying the prize booty taken in Delhi is not lawful prize , and they are not to have it , but that in recognition of " their gallant services he is pleased to grant a donation of sis months' batta . Why , six months' batta is onl y some 20 rupees for a European soldier , and he is to get this after being in the field in some cases for seven monthsafter taking Delhi and getting prize therein to the extent of more than half a crore of rupees—not from the private property of Europeans or Government stores and guns , but actual ' loot' dug up and taken from the houses of the murderous fiends of Delhi . This same loot or booty would give a subaltern some 400 ? . The batta gives him 701 ., which in most cases will not pay hia field expenses , to say nothing about what the force has done and suffered General Wilson appointed prize agents , and in his order said the men were to make over their booty to them , and that it would be afterwards divided among the force , according to the prize . So , as a point of honour among themselves , all ' loot' was made over to the prize agents as the property of the field force . However , the Governor-General ' s lawyers say we are not t o have it . What a delightful piece of intelligence for men who dug up bags of gold mohurs and made them over to the prize agents , and how very encouraging to our gallant troops for all . they have done and suffered ! Had they anticipated this gracious act of Lord Canning I expect the prize agents would have whistled for their booty . However , I expect the Court at home won ' t allow this , or , at any rate , give compensation , as I hear the Governor-General has only power to give six months ' hatta . "
THE CAPTURE OF BATOHUB . Ratghur , stated , in the telegrams received last week , to have been taken by Sir Hugh Rose on the 29 th of January , and Rakjurh , said to have been captured by the same commander on the 26 th of January , are the same towns . Sir Hugh took Ratghur on the 29 th , after two days' preparations for storming , at the end of which time it was discovered that the place had been evacuated . The details of this exploit are thus related by the Bombay Standard : — " On the 23 rd , the detachment with the guns was ordered to push on and join the main body . They reached camp about one o ' clock in the afternoon , but without their tents . Having bivouacked the following night , they started on Monday morning , under orders to push on , as the enemy -were moving out to defend the ford by which they were expected to cross the river . Our troops , however , forded further down , and the insurgents , thus foiled , crossed the country , and were able to fire a volley into the advanced guard as they entered the town close by the fort of Ratghur . A dragoon and native Subadar were killed . At eight a . m . on the 25 th , General Rose , with his divisional staff , rode round the fort , of which a careful reconnoissance , which occupied the chief part of the da }' , was made . It is placed upon the pear-shaped summit of a hill about seven hundred feet above the plain , the walls enclosing the entire of the wider end . Nearly the whole is surrounded by precipitous rocks , the only approach being ; by a narrow and steep ascent along the ridge . A part of the force made a feigned attack , when the General with his staff and 8 rd European Regiment crept up the narrow ridge . On the 26 th , the heavy guns were placed in position , and tho fire opened , while the 3 rd Europeans drove tho enemy from tho heights . The rebels had proclaimed that , as tho fort was provisioned for a year , and was considered strong , they were determined to maintain it to the last . On tho morning of the 28 th , a large body of mutineers , concealed in tho thick jungles around , attempted to relieve tho fort . They assailed the rear of our camp and tho videttes guarding the right rear of tho force . They wore at onco attacked and driven across the rivor with severe loss by Captaiii Hare with the Hyderabad Contingont . Tho garrison now fairly lost heart , and two hours boforo daybreak on tho 29 th a portion of thorn endeavoured to sally out of tho main gate , when they wore drivon back by Captain Lightfoot * B 9-poundors . Tho great body of them escaped by lowering themselves over tho walls by ropes and scrambling down tho precipice . Mahomed Fazol Khan , and another rebel Nawab , wore hung over tho gatoj tho utmost kindness was shown to tho women and children . " THIS OAFTURI 3 OF AWAH . The same paper relates tho way in whioh . A wall fell into our possession : — 41 defences consisted of a mud and wattle ombnnkmont about forty foot base , sloping upward to tho height of nearly ( lfty foot . Tho wall was loopholcd for matchlocks and jlngals , and wus nearly imponotr / iWo either-by-Bhot < o ^ 8 lioll . ^ TJnifl _ waB _ flan mounting fVom two to throe guns each . Some twenty yards in advance of tho inner wall was n high bank a wo loopholod , and protected by thorns mul bronchos , "" j in advance of tlio whole an abattia , constituting A win one of tho atrongost towns in Rujpootami . Colonel Holmos , on tho troops being united , took co mmand , " 9 senior officer . Ho considered tho plneo much too ) i > rmldnblo for an oseau . lt until a good broach had l ) 0 Qn made , and on tho day tho forces united , mortar unu howitzer batterios wore established ono thousand y «™ fl from the town . Oft tho 20 th and 22 nd of January , two
TUB OAPTGIUB ODD JDBJLHI . A young officer who served at Delhi writes in great disgust ) at boing disappointed of hia prize money : — " I boo by the mail juot in , November 20 th , General Wilson has boon made a baronot for Delhi , and that Iho Court of Directors give him 1000 J . a year pension . This
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THE INDIAN REVOLT .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 13, 1858, page 244, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2234/page/4/
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