TITAN.

INDIAN OMEN S:

A RETROSPECT AND AN OUTLOOK.

WE have a wealthy manufacturer in our parish, who prides himself on being eminently practical.' He has a little spleen, good man, for he dines heavily, but this passes off innocently in such expressions as 'humbug, nonsense,' 'romance,' 'bosh,' 'absurdity.'

We are building schools, and the other day wanted £100 to make up the sum. Every one had subscribed except this man, whom we'll call B. We had never dared to ask him, for we knew the only coin we should get would be 'humbug' and 'nonsense.' But at last in despair I made up my mind to go to him. Of course my long exordium was received with a dry 'humph.'

'What do the people want with education, sir?' he replied. They have no time to read and work too; and what is the use of their minds being cultivated, when they only work with their bodies?'

To expose the obvious fallacy of his argument would have been only wasting time. I immediately started on another tack.

'You know,' I said, 'the state of Mr G's. mills?' The worthy manufacturer frowned blue. Mr G. was his successful rival. 'You are aware,' I continued, that he is never in want of hands; that his men are regular and punctual, orderly and honest? You must know, furthermore, that they pay their rents to the day, and that the condition of his estate and VOL. XXVI. JANUARY, 1858.

cottages was much admired by the commissioners?'

'Well, sir, and what has that to do with me?'

'Allow me, sir. You are aware that, thirty years ago, those mills and that estate were in a very different condition?'

Ay, that they were, it's true.'

That twenty years back schools were built there; that they have been regularly attended, and that the greater part of his workmen and workwomen were brought up in those schools in habits of neatness, honesty, and sobriety? May I beg you now to look at the gorgeous gin-palaces on your own estate, and compare with the other.'

the

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Three days later, the 'eminently practical' millowner sent us a cheque for the amount. He saw how the improvement of the people would pay, and he ceased to call it humbug.

When I got the cheque, I said_to A., 'Now, this is just the case of the Indian Government.'

Let us, then, for the sake of discussion, throw off all our finer feelings with regard to the Indian Question, and look at it in Mr B.'s 'eminently practical' manner.

On a certain day in October-I forget which I noticed, and fancy many people besides must have noticed, that almost every London paper began its leading article with three short words, which, if not precisely the same in each, conveyed precisely the same

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idea: 'Delhi is fallen!' 'Delhi is
taken!' Delhi is ours!' and so on.
Now this was not by way of news,
for the fact was known by every soul
in the vast metropolis long before
these papers were even at press. Nor
was it merely an elegant way of be-
ginning an important article. Then
there would have been more variety.
No; it was a sigh of relief, which
not one editor could refrain from. It
was the heading of the new series of
articles, the Finis to an old. The three
short words meant nothing less than
this: 'we have written for two months
prophecies, fears, apprehensions, con-
victions, accusations, raillery-every-
thing, in short, that suited the moment.
All that is over-all must be expunged;
we forget all we have said. The In-
dian mutiny is virtually at an end,
and we now desire to wipe out the
past, and look only to the future. We
have abused and criticised. We must
now consult and advise. These three
words mean that we turn the fly-leaf,
and begin a new volume.'

The question then is now, 'What
We are not
shall we do with India?'
Morrisons or Parrs. We do not ask
you to examine our new panacea.
We have none to offer. But you must
endeavour to profit by that experience
which has cost such dreadfully high
school wages.'

You have built up a vast empire.
You have made India the wonder of
But in all
a wonder-surfeited age.
this you have sadly neglected, sadly
sacrificed, the human material you em-
ployed. You have worked away on
the narrow-minded, money-loving prin-
ciples of Mr B. the manufacturer,
and refused to see hitherto that the
best course with God is the best course
for man.

I think the subject may be looked
at from three points. There is little
doubt now that this Indian outbreak
is a mutiny, and not a rebellion.
We must therefore examine the peo-
ple from the military point of view.
There is little doubt that it is con-
nected more or less with religion; and
so the religious question will be the
next. There is, lastly, little doubt
that, though this time it is only a mu-
tiny, it may next time--ay, and if
neglected, assuredly will-be a gene-
ral revolt; and it behoves us, therefore,

to look to the civil question, and see
what treatment the character of the
people demands at our hands.

To begin then with the military
question.

First, let us sketch very briefly the rise and conduct of the native Indian army. We shall see, in doing so, how precisely the old proverb, 'give a dog a bad name,' has here been reversed. The sepoy has always had a good name-a peculiarly good one; and it has stuck to him, ay, up to the very last moment, when the whole of the Bengal army had mutinied save one or two regiments, whose commanding officers still kept their old confidence in their men.

The The sepoy has acquired this good name by a strange anomaly. faithful sepoy,' the devoted sepoy,' were the terms in which he was spoBut ken of, when there was a far better opening for saying 'the brave sepoy,' 'the well-disciplined sepoy.' somehow or other this idea of fidelity became connected with the name of sipahi, and not a score of mutinies have been able to rend the one from the other.

During the last hundred years mutiny has been attempted, and too often with success, by some one or more reThere giments at a time, no less than fourteen different times-that is, about once in every seven years. were only four mutinies in the first fifty years, three in the next twentyfive, and seven in the last twenty-five; been on the increase. so that the spirit of mutiny has clearly

The existence of a regular army in India dates only from 1757, exactly one hundred years ago, in which year the various irregular native forces were distributed into regiments, and soon after divided among the three presidencies.

But the principle of defending a foreign government by the arms of its own native subjects-this principle which has endured nearly two centuries in practice, and even now seems likely to outlive the fearful shock it has sustained; this principle, of which the world's ages have seen but one example, and that example has this year ended in a failure more awful -is of much earlier date. than any failure of a principle before

In 1668 the Portuguese ceded Bom