On this page
-
Text (2)
-
1022 IHB.LBASBB. TNo. 396, Octobbb, 24,1...
-
THE ANNEXATION" OP OUDE. Tub partisans o...
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
The Dispersion Of The Art Treasures. Wa ...
bhe Hyde Park Palace , and now take the Sydenham Palace as a fashionable lounge , — -a place for assignations a little more sheltered bhan Kensington Gardens , and rather more convenient than St . Paul ' s Cathedral . The audience at Manchester was of a very different breed from these . Of coarse there was a sprinkling of fashionable visitors . The reporters told us , that on the opening , and certain gala days , the palace was a perfect flower-garden from the blooming splendour of its visitors ; but these were not the learners at the Manchester Exhibition . The learners
" were the busy ci'owds who spared one day from labour , and came to drink in visions of truth with their great wondering , staring eyes — visions of which they had never before dreamed . It is said , and we believe rightly so , that the Grreat Exhibition of 1851 has exercised a marked influence over the national taste ; that our women dress better than before it happened , that houses are more tastefully furnished , and that the purveyors to luxury find it necessary to wed expense to Art , in order to make their labours popular . That much of this is due to the iufluence
of the Great Exhibition we cannot for one moment doubt ; but , valuable as it is , it is only an education of the purchasers . The Manchester Exhibition , on the other hand , has been an education of the producers . These cotton-dressed and beclogged lads and lasses who thronged from all parts of industrial Lancashire to bask for a few hours in the sunshine of Art , have not gone back to their spindles and their looms without carrying with them exalted and expanded ideas of truth and beauty . If ' . a
thing of beauty is a joy for ever , ' it is so unexeeptionally , for it never vanishes from the mind to which it has once become apparent . Without taking any account of the moral influence which such lessons have over the uneducated ( an influence from , which the employers of labour cannot but reap infinite advantage ) , we may , without being too sanguine , expect to find one of the results of the Manchester Exhibition in the direct improvement of the worker . " We shall find the exquisite minuteness of Mabtjse and Yan Eyck
faintly reproduced in . our calicoes , the grace of Hatfaelle shining through our jaconets , and the ' gemrny surface * of Sir Joshua . giving a value to our madapolams . This is , of course , putting the matter figuratively but we are grievously mistaken if the projectors of the Art treasures Exhibition had not some such expectation when they devised their scheme .
It is not too much to say that the Collection of Treasures which is now leaving Old Trafford can never he brought together again —at least , not within the present century . It is impossible that the owners of so many priceless works will again be persuaded to part with objects which must be the most valued of their possessions . For months past
the walls of many a noble mansion have been despoiled of their most treasured ornaments . Things which are not to be bought with gold , and which , if lost , can never be replaced , have teen trusted out of their owners' hands . That may happen once in a century , but scarcely twice . We may say , therefore , that , as the Manchester Art Treasures' Exhibition was an event perfectly unique , it is likely to continue so .
1022 Ihb.Lbasbb. Tno. 396, Octobbb, 24,1...
1022 IHB . LBASBB . TNo . 396 , Octobbb , 24 , 1857 .
The Annexation" Op Oude. Tub Partisans O...
THE ANNEXATION" OP OUDE . Tub partisans of the dethroned dynasty of Oude have attempted to mako capital out of fclie Indian mutiny . They have succeeded so far as , by exjparte representations , to induce a good many writers to attribute the insurrection of the Sepoya almost wholly to the
annexation by Lord Dalhottsie of Wajid Alee Shah ' s dominions . That the rebellion was thus originated is matter of history , we are told . History will not take that view of the matter . No one cause produced the revolt of a hundred thousand soldiers of various classes , creeds , and nationalities . Observers in India , transmitting home their opinions , have enumerated at least eight different influences which , acting upon the Hindoo and Mohammedan mind , have resulted in this tremendous explosion : —a suspicion of a systematic design to Europeanize and Christianize the native army ; the unhealthy pampering of the high-caste Sepoy ; the greased cartridges ; the absence of European officers from their regiments ; a longmeditated Mohammedan scheme to-subvert the English government ; a sudden frenzy of patriotism kindled by the spoliation of Oude ; the General Service Order ; the indiscreet behaviour of certain Europeans towards Hindoo women . We have been at the pains to collect and compare the evidence in support of _ all the assertions . We have weighed opinions , and traced each one of the alleged causes from the point at which it appears to that at which it is lost amidst the confusion of the conflict ; and the theory which appears to us the least teaable is that which ascribes the outbreak to bhe political absorption of Oude . Had that country remained in a state of semi-independence , we do not believe that the allegiance of a , single man would thereby have been secured to the East India Company . On the contrary , it is probable , as we many weeks ago suggested , that Luckuow would have becoaie a centre of the seditious movement ; that , instead of a simple revolt , we should have had a revolt and a war at once upon our hands ; and that the King of Oude would have set an example to the other provinces of India , of allying himself in the field with , our mutinous Sepoys , with the hope of restoring the inheritance of his ancestors . As it is , the deposed family of Oude , having a vast store of documents at hand , and a number of Young Indians to believe in them , has ingeniously mingled its ¦ complaints with the groans of Bengal , and declared that we are suffering . for the wrongs we permitted Lord Daliiousie to inflict upon the successors of Saadat Ali Kiian . Now , who have "been the rebels ? Hindoos of the higher castes , Mohammedans , and Sikhs . The Sikhs had no sympathy with Oude . What did the Chhatris care whether they were governed by Mohammedans or Christians ? If they had a political object to attain it surely was not the perpetuation of that power which had enthralled their race
and subordinated their religion . Besides , the Mohammedans of Oude are for the most part Shiahs who have a feud with other sects . In like manner , Madrasees , Parsees , Bengalees , Punjabees , Hindoos , and Mussulmans of every denomination have assisted to swell the murderous anarchy of the Eastern and North-Western Provinces , or to propagate in the West and South the pass-words of tho conspiracy , and the princes of Ouclo pretend that tho tempest has broken out to avenge their deprivation .
Oude was a cancer in tho heart of British India until Lord Daluousie removed the cause of the disease from Luck now . In weakness and profligacy , says Tiiounton , Wajid Alee Siiau surpassed evoa his predecessors ; the territory was in a state perpetually threatening combustion . Bad faith provoked tho English ; bad government irritated tho natives . A traveller ha * described tho taxgatherer lighting hia way , in tho neighbourhood of Luckuow , amid tho flumes of forty burning villages—tho method of distress adopted by tho officers of tho Royal
Exchequer . The choice lay between employ . mg an English army to coerce a miserable people , or putting an end to a Govern - ment which -was only a reality when it tortured and plundered its subjects . "We were responsible for the administration of Oude before \ ve deprived its hereditary Carnifex of the privilege of defying three millions of a wretched population , under cover of a British contingent . He was , in one respect , our viceroy ; we were at least not guiltless when , by our assistance , he was enabled to
devastate an ancient and once prosperous dominion . It was in the midst of a failing revenue , a riotous army , the disaffection of the territorial chiefs , the starvation of the cultivators , the rapid relapse of the soil into a state of nature , the extension of slavery , the wholesale disappearance of ploughs—the surest sigii of exhaustion in India—that Lord Dalhousie interfered to bring the province under British jurisdiction . This was eileeted in fulfilment of conditions which , long previously , had been laid down .
Bishop Heber wrote a favourable report upon Oude ; but that was more than thirty years ago . Had UegiktaIiD Hebeb . travelled in the country shortly before it was annexed , his picture would have been , differently coloured . A degraded sovereign , sunk in excesses aniidsb a rabble of eunuchs and singers , and distributing his attention "between " dancing-girls , fireworks , pigeons , fiddlers , and cats , would form the central figure of . the scene . Around him would be extensive districts in which revenue and finance had fallen "
into indescribable confusion ,, the army being maintained as ' much'by plunder as by legal levies of taxation . The courts of law would be represented as shamelessly' corrupt and ridiculously inefficient ; the soldiery as rapacious , undisciplined , brutal , and a terror to the peaceful population . There would be one respectable road—that . from Cawnpore to Luckuow—traced across the panorama , a solitary highway of fifty-three miles in a country nearly three hundred miles from frontier to frontier . Even this was constructed at the
requisition of the East India Company . But it is unnecessary to enter into categorical details . It is impossible to get rid of the fact that the Government in behalf of which a hundred thousand men arc said to have risen , far and near , was one of the worst that ever existed , even in Asia . The Delhi rebels , in their proclamation , have never mentioned Oude . The Nana Sahib sent for instructions to Delhi . The
majority of the native princes , who might have been expected to make common cause with Waji : d Alee Shah , have stood aloof from him . But there are circumstances which account for the prominent part played by troops from Oude in tho military rebellion . An immense proportion of the old native army was transferred , en Hoc , under tho British flag . This was , perhaps , one ot the most remarkable errors of policy ever
committed in India . Wo took into our pay a host of men who had been accustomed to outrage and riot . Hud we embodied the defeated Khalsa regiments after our conquest of fclio Punjab , wo might have had a general insurrection from Lahore to Patna , mid it might then have been asserted tlmfc Imlin was rising to punish tho severity of the Knghsu Singh
towards tlic descendants of Ku njekt . Whether annexed or not , Oudo would have ' smouldered in tho centre of a < lis : ifl « ctott Molimnincdjiu aoldiory ; ' , with a king ftl Luduiow , surrounded by a set of ambitious commanders and an organized army , W should probably Imvo had to contend a # unBi dangers oveiv moro serious than tnoao j which our ascendancy has actually boon threatened .
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Oct. 24, 1857, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_24101857/page/14/
-