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906 THE LE A D E R. [No*. 441, September...
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HISTORY OF THE PARSEES. The Parsecs: the...
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The. Mutinies-In Oudh. An Account Of The...
that Havelock had neither failed them nor miscalculated , aud that liis forces were at hand . This the sound of field artillery at no great distance seemed to corroborate . The ^ enemy soon began to evacuate his position ; hurkng a fearful farewell ixirrican & of shot and shell into the Residency , he melted away at last across the river , and was succeeded by the relieving forces . " It is impossible , says the Commissioner , "to describe the scene within the entrenchments that evening . "—and we Relieve him . But every reader of this spirit-stirring ^ narra tive can picture for himself the sensations of
the worn-out garrison and the no less harassed -re-r li ef , and to admire the good taste of the historian who has not robbed imagination of her privilege . Th » second period of the siege , termed by General Havelock " the blockade , " now commenced . Having aeft their stores outside at Alumbagh , and having with them no means of transport , that officer and General Outram had no means whatever of carrying off the relieved force in face of the enemy , througli whom they had just now with such difficldty cut their own way . They remained therefore within the walls to share the provisions and the dangers of the old garrison in a far more extended position . This , as is did til finallall t clear
now well known , they un y go -away , on . the second relief by Sir Colin Campbell . During this epoch Gubbins ' s post was one ot less prominence and danger . The author had therefore time for civil pursuits , and among others superintended the erection of a telegraph between the Residency and the Alumbaghjwliich isolated post -was sustaining a siege of its own . At the end of October Sir C . CampoelPs advance was a matter of certainty , on the 12 th of November he was at tlie Alumbagb , and such was the tenacity of the mutinous army ^ that he did not perfect his comsnunications with the Residency till the 17 th , when he ordered its immediate evacuation . On the and
19 th this commenced ^ on . the 22 nd the relieving force , of 4550 men , carried off the remnant of the garrison in the face of 50 , 000 enemies . Sir Colin Campbell , who could neither bring himself to storm the Royal Palace , where also all was ready 'for ' an evacuation , nor to continue the occupation of the Residency , took the proud little band , who we < can well imagine were hardly grateful at the moment , in his train to the Alumbagh , and within a week relievers and relieved were rejoicing and mourning together at that well of bitterness—Cawnpore . we have been led into the foregoing lengthy , though sadly meagre , analysis of Mr . Gubbins ' s military chronicle , or the simple reason that it deserved no less at the hands of a conscientious
reviewer ; but there is yet in his pages abundaut stor £ of very interesting and important material for consideration , to which we must , however briefly , . allude . Chapters TV ., V ., and VI . of the work are der voted to an elaborate consideration of the causes of the mutiny which , the rule of the India Company being now ended , must henceforth more—not , as some would say , less- —than ever be a subject for reflection ( for all who take any interest in the extension of our power , our trade , and civilisation generally . Mr . tiubbins ' s Memoir , which contains * we apprehend , the substance of an " opinion" prepared b y him for Mr . Colvin , then Lieutenant-Governor ot Agra , is . entitled to the more weight that it met with the approval of Sir Henry Lawrence , who had himself contributed papers on the condition of the Bengal Native Army to the Calcutta Review .
Ilhfi jFQjlpwing ( fjays the author ) embraco all the causes that nave been adduced , so far asXhave heard or read , to account for this wide-spread and unlookedfor mutiny ; 1 . It has been attributed to Russian intrigue . 2 . To a long-matured conspiracy on the part of the Mahommedans . 8 . It has boou viewed by others aa a national jrevolt . 4 . Not a few attribute the mutinies to the British . annexation of the Province of Oudu ,
5 . Some regard it to be a religious outbreak of the soldiery , aroused by our interference with their prejudices and religion , in which the people sympathised , j & tsffj / fA It is regarded by otlxers as ohfofly attributable ¦ to ihei aDsouco of a suftlclerit "Jiuropettn forcej ' to ^ tlfe * condition and management ; of the Bengal army having been unsound and bad \ and to the Sepoy having been . too much freed from the bonds of discipline , and having { become discontented .
The first throe of these causes Mr . Gubbins shows to be clearl y insufficient , and nearly without foundation . To the relation of the fourth to the result bis very intimate connexion , as a civilian of high standing , with the annexation seems to have blinded
him , and lip dismisses it with arguments which , in our opinion , should have led him to combine it with the fifth and sixth alleged causes , which lie believes solely to have originated and stimulated the revolt . Alarm on the subject of caste and religion , had long previously been growing in the native mind . In the April before tiie mutiny , the surgeon of the 4 Sth Native Infantry had so deeply irritated the Sepoys by applying to his mouth a regimental medicine bottle , thus violating their' caste , that his colonel felt obliged to destroy the desecrated flask , and publicly to rebuke the offender , whose house
and property were a few nights after burnt over his head . Government , it was extensively believed , had sent cargoes of bone-dust up the country for admixture with flour and sweetmeats , so that all who ate of it might lose their caste . Others believed in the intention of the Europeans to import Crimean widows wholesale , force them as wives upon the zemindars , and declare the offspring of such matches heirs to the various properties of their native fathers , thus supplanting in course of time
the Hindoo proprietary . A propitious soil is the native mind for the growth of superstitions , and when information was given to the Sepoys by a low caste labourer in the arsenal that k . each who had used a rifle cartridge had taken to his lips the fat of bulls and had so lost liis caste for ever , can we wbnder any longer at the explosion . The greased cartridge affair , in . fact , which men long viewed here as a mere pretext , should he regarded somewhat as the " last feather , "
or the portfire to a charged petard . The native prejudices had for years , we ' can learn from the Commissioner ' s luminous pages , been outraged , not , soothed , by the well-intentioned educational ' measures which went , it must be confessed , to a maniacal length . Contributions were levied upon villages for the purpose . Criminals actually , in default of voluntary scholars , were educated in astronomy and the arts , as well as in elementary knowledge , and when proficient were sent from gaol to gaol as professors ! Missionary enterprise , again , was favoured here and there to an extravagant extent ,
and sometimes , since 1 S 5 . 0 , forced upon the people by over zealous propagandists , in a far too fervent manner . The Legislature , again ,, had legalised , the marriage of Hindoo widows , confirmed converts in their inheritances , in defiance of the native traditional law , and was threatening' the institution of polygamy . The organisation of the Bengal ^ anny offered ample scope for the development of discontent once sown . Our Bengal Sepoys were nearly all Oudh men of a few of the highest castes , _ and drawn from the same families . Consanguinity
bound them to one another no less than fanaticism . Discipline had of late years been relaxed . The lash had been abolished under Lord William Bentinck , and , in the words of an old native officer , "the army ceased to fear . " Centralisation of command at head-quar-ters , which though well enough in countries blessed with telegraph and penny-post , is an absurdity in the vast territory of British India , had reduced commandants to the runic of cyphers . Deprived of power and responsibility , many of them , as might be expected , had drifted into indifference . The extension of the limits within which the
nntivo soldier was formerly compelled to serve by the articles of liis enlistment , was another ground for discontent . While service beyond the world of his ideas was paid for b y double batta , he was soothed and consoled for the violence done to his intense religio loot , but when service in China , Burnmh , and Java were made part of India for the purposes of those articles , and foreign servioo pay *¦* *\ n /\ y ] 4 M * x % ^» 1 » t t % ^ 11 y ^ v * iiii * -v \ % ¦ «« f \ . m \ I r \ . %% 11 I £ ) tflt ^ Tiftff ^ /" I muiiituiuu tuk is mini
** * tvUUQviu iiuwi * iuji , uu , »»> ^ nv . shriues and holy rivers . The option of invaliding upon pension after fifteen years' service was practically withdrawn from men not actually disablod , and their compulsion , under Lord Haraingo ' s Government , to remain bjr tho colours as crimp sorvants was another grievance which wo can imagine to have nearly touched the home-sick Bongaleo Sepoy . But tho diminished interest of the European officer in the welfare and progress of his men must , if proven , be admitted as a yot more obvious causo
^ f ^ lisWgaTuTatioTrr ^ " noted the improper distance which separates tho young British subalterns from the grey-beard subahdar or the young Sepoy of his company . I have ofton remonstrated with my young military frionds on tho ' . subjoot . ' ' How can you oxpcot devotion in the Acid / I have asked , ' when you arc a stranger to your men in cantonment P '" Unless the European offioor take pains to make himself readily accessible to tho people ho can but
hear with the ears and sec with the eyes of native sub-officials , and when these arc vena they always are , they will put to usance the p ( and the influence thus thoughtlessly demised to tl and the middle man so placed njust each day ini ably become a greater scourge to those below a more necessary evil to an indolent superior , the -modern system of withdrawing a large nuii of regimental officers from staff employment
has fostered , if it has not created , this mditlcrc Men sure of Leadenhall-street . influence have fc it better worth their while to study for staff appc ments than to become thorough regimental offic and men sure of no advancement have been pi to neglect routine duties in the absence of prospect of reward for exertion . ' . May it not be and tenfold worse than so , in the days yet to co ; ( To . be-continued . }
906 The Le A D E R. [No*. 441, September...
906 THE LE A D E R . [ No * . 441 , September 4 , 1858
History Of The Parsees. The Parsecs: The...
HISTORY OF THE PARSEES . The Parsecs : their History , Manners , Customs , and Ufjion . By D ' osabiioy Framjee . Smith , Elder anc Whatever may be said against the English ministration of India , it is something that we i secured the allegiance , the affection , nay , even devotion , of its wealthiest and most intelligent r The Parsecs , though comparatively few in liuml are valuable supports to a Government / They not military , though during the mutinies , they
offer to enlist , at Bombay on the proud condil that they should be paid " English soldiers ; their influence is greater than any mere phy . s strength could give them . The very grounds which they have clung to us , even in our darl hours , are equally complimentary to . them ' ant ourselves . When we hear , indeed , a people of i : chants , in a country where we have been accuse endeavouring to suppress all native dcvelopm coming forward and thanking us for an enlighte mirl liberal swav under which thev have ddul
their wealth and their numbers , we may well eager to accept such a ¦ ¦ suffrage . ~ The commun too , which , in a land of prejudice and passion , is tuatcd by such motives , places itself on a very 1 level . We could easily understand , therefore , i a volume like that before us should be read v eager and general interest . A book written by a fire-worshipper , a folio of Zoroaster , in the nineteenth century , in Engl and published withiu a hundred yards of the \} n is in itself a curiosity . Dosabhby Eramjce , h <
ever , is a clear and . sensible writer , and requires adventitious circumstances to secure at tent i His knowledge of our language is remarkable , his pages we arc never startled by any naivete , offended by the slang which foreigners who fa they know our language frequently employ in or to seem more English than the English themseli His object is to make the race to which hu bclo more popularly known in Europe , where , hide he somewhat too modestly supposes ^ its very istence is problematic to many . The histor sketch with which he commences is well done .
docs not give more than due importance to leger however interesting ; but tells , in a brief , ] turcsquo manner , how the Parsecs , the descemln of the ancient Persians , were oppressed by Mohi mechin incursion , and how the mnjorily wore for to adopt tho new religion , whilst a faithful I either retreated into Khorassan or retired lirst Ormuz in the Persian Gulf , and ultimately Io Ini Tho account of their reception at Soujan is sinlarly interesting anil romantic , though rather tone -than iu . details .. .,. Thq Parsers , unijynvi various vicissitudes in their new country , and w gradually dispersed and trodden down , until length , when the English became possessed of Be bay , they found thoir natural protectors .
Tho numerical strength of the Parsecs docs : at present exceed one hundred ami fifty thou-sa including the small remnant left in Persia . Tl arc vapidly increasing , and Dosab ' ioy ITramjcc sta that this is in consequence of thoir attending sanitary rules far moro than the o ' -hor races of lnc They aro divided into two sects , tho Shcnroys f tho lCudmiSjbuttho ground of d fib "cncc seoinsiner to"be-nsH ) 0 ''trhe' >* corree <)^< oln'OiH-lo ^ iottliwdato-ffou-. computalion of the era of Zoydezond , tho last K of tlie anciont Persian Monarchy . Equall y i ' u ' subjects of dispute have led , in other religions , sanguinary and interminable wars ; but tho Parse though oaeh soot obstinately sticks to its o ]> iuu minglo frooly in society , and in every relation life , without exhibiting anything like the oili tfieologioum . One most iuLorosting part of the present w
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 4, 1858, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04091858/page/18/
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