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    ain THE "LE A DE it. [No. 442, September...

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    THE MUTINIES IN QUDII. tto Lucknow Resid...

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    MOUE BOOKS ON INDIA. Service ' and "A tt...

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    American Aboriginal Languages. The Liter...

    together , an < J seeming contradictions to be reconciled . Then as in all branches of human knowledge , with such data to build upon , in the hands of master minds a key way be discovered to the" maze which , however imperfectly , is here placed before the reader , and for which the merit of careful arid painstaking industry may fairly he claimed . We believe Lord . Bacon , was the first to throw out a hint that the aboriginal languages of America were riot derived from the same source as those of the Old World , " If you Consider well of the people of the West Indies , " are his words , " it is very probable that they are a newer or younger people than the people of the Old World , and it is to be noted that , in the destructions by deluge aud

    earthquake , the remnant of people which happen to be resei ~ ved are commonly ignorant and mountainous feople , that can give . no account of the time past , t is most likely that the destruction that hath heretofore been there was not by earthquakes , but by some particular deluge ; for earthquakes are seldom in those parts . But on the other side they have such pouring rivers , that the rivers of Asia , Africa , and Europe , are but brooks to them , and their Andes , too , or mountains , are far higher than those with us , whereby it seems probable that the . remnants of generations of men were saved in some particular deluge / 5 Indeed , the more the ancient languages of the Red Indian nations are exam ined , the more we are inclined to think with Lord Bacon , that these races are not to be identified as pertaining

    to the families 6 f the Old World ; for there is no affinity between them and those extinct or still spoken in the Eastern hemisphere . It is true , that the remains of ancient buildings inCentral America , and Mexican hieroglyphics , might , at the first blush , lead to a different conclusion ¦; , but the moire closely the matter is mvestigated i the more difficult is it to reconcile the descent of the aborigines of America from the peoples of remote antiquity . The subject is one of the deepest interest to all who would trace the rise and progress of the human family from the Creation downwards , as well as to those who seek to master the nature and origin of language , the confusion of tongues , and the natural history of the Various races which are spread over the face of the globe .

    We have here the list of monuments still existing , of an almost innumerable series of languages and dialects of the American continent . The greater part of Indian grammars and vocabularies exist stiU only in manuscript , and were compiled chiefly by missionaries of the various branches of the Christian church , and to Dr . Ludewig and Mr . Trubner , we are , therefore , the more iudebted , for the great care with which they have pointed out where such are to be found , as well as for enumerating those which have been printed , either in a separate shape , in collections , or in voyages and travels , and elsewhere .

    As ** Old Mortality" cleaned * the inscriptions on the Covenanters' tombs , bo did Dr . Ludewig endeavour to rub off the rust of ages from the scattered remains of the aborigines of America . Had it not been a labour of love like his , it would not have been attempted . Unimportant as such labours may seem to men engaged in the more bustling occupation ? of life , all must at least acknowledge that these records of the past , like the sternlights of a departing ship , are the last glimmers of savage life , aa it becomes absorbed , or recedes before the tide of civilisation .

    Mr . Trubner has adopted the sphere turning on its axis as his trade murk , with tlie" motto from Juvenal— " Una avttha non deficit ( tltera , " and we believe he has already a second volume of his Bibliotheca Glottica in preparation , which will embrace tho aboriginal languages of South Africa , in proof that he does not do so idly , but with the full intention of completing the whole on the same plan and with tlie same completeness with which ho has produced his specimen volume .

    Ain The "Le A De It. [No. 442, September...

    ain THE "LE A DE it . [ No . 442 , September XI , 1858 .

    The Mutinies In Qudii. Tto Lucknow Resid...

    THE MUTINIES IN QUDII . tto Lucknow Residency ; with some Observations on the Condition of the Province of Oudh , and on tho Causes of the Mutiny of the Bengal Amu * By Martin Richard Gubbms , of the Bengal Civil Service , Financial Commissioner for Oudh . Richard Bentley . rj 9 iscoHJ > Notice . ] Wiwi tho underpayment of the native officers enda the roll of elements of discontentment jn tho Sepoy army . Sir Henry Lawrence was wont to compare the status and emoluments a native gentleman could attain to under native governments Wth those attainable in , the . British ftdfan army ,

    and he thought the disparity was too great . Uiidc . r the former , a man may have earned one thousand rupees a month as a cavalry officer under a native rajah , "while his son , as an unadvanceable sub-cotnmauder in a corps of our awn may not get beyond ' eighty . The native courts were a field for natives of enterprise . Active men might in these hotbeds of vice ana enervation become rich and honoured . The annexation of each petty principality was the knell of family and individual hopes , and the monster gulp with-which ' the British lion bolted Oudh . must have crushed the aspirations and vested interests of many a military clan as well as of many a vermin nest of pimps and parasites ;

    Mr . Gubbins , swayed doubtless by civilian esprit de corps , puts in an admirably lucid manner the advantages the British rule has introduced into Oudh ; but he has also shown so clearly the confusion thrown into the interests of large bodies and classes by the annexation , that we are ourselves utterly unable to disconnect , as lie would have us , that event from the recent rebellion . He urgesy and with justice , that the party most benefited by . the introduetiott of our rule was the Sepoy class , i . e . the class from which our late Bengal Sepoy army was almost entirely drawn , aud who form the peasantry of the country . He shows cause enough for contentment that theoretically should have prevailed , but'he fails to make out its existence , still less its effect in contractinsr tlie stream of the revolt . If

    the presence of . all dear to them within the disturbed area , in fear of a rapacious talookdar to-day , and of Company Bahadoor to-morrow ; prey , in turn , to each regular corps of belligerents , each freebooting horde of disbanded janissaries from Imcknow > and every wandering band of dacoits , —if what we may term the enormous aggregate stake of tlie mutinous army in the welfare and soil itself , of a grand province but just emerging from under tlie harrow of pur annexation , availed nothing to keep it round its colours , it must follow that no such pressure was placed by the enormous body of Sepoy peasantry in Oudh upon their connexions in that army as would have sprung from any real partiality for British rule . .

    It is plain that among the upper classes in Oudh we had enemies enough ready wade . The valuable chapters we are now noticing set forth how the most powerful of the oppressive talookdars , or native landholders , were , of necessity , inimical to a rule under which hundreds upon hundreds of opulent villages melted away from their grasp into that of the Sepoy clas 3 , whose petitions for justice , filtering , as they used , through British regimental officer , civil officer , central officer , residentiary officer , to the foot of the Luoknow Musnud ,

    obtained in former days but scant and tardy recognition . We , who have studied for ourselves , and according to our own light , the Oudh papers of the session of 1856 , have no hesitation in accepting the author ' s forcible conspectus of the state of Oudh , the barbarous brutality of the talookdar class , and the value , as well as justice , of the resettlement of Ihe land which followed our annexation . But , so admitting his review of this and of other powerful interests dislocated upon our advent , we cannot fail at once to couple their writhings with subsequent transactions .

    Besides the somUrcgular and rabble adherents of the landholders ( who , it must be remembered , arc in point of income no mcre . sauircCR 9 , but men with incomes , raised by right ana wrong , varying from 50 , 000 / . to 200 , 000 / . per annum ) , we had to face the animosity of the disbanded royal army of 00 , 000 men , who had been accustomed , while eating nominally the bread of tho royal family of Oudh , to lead a life of licence and rapine . Of these 15 , 000 took servico in our new local force ; the majority , however , could brook no discipline , and all , or nearly all , of them might eventually be traced to the ranks of the mutineers .

    The court families , agtun , comprising tho innumerable branches of the royal house and their dcpon'deTfjrtTib ^ pagandisin of Alee Nuckco , the prime agent of the dethroned prince . Compensation had been promised to all by tho incoming government , but during tho investigation of their claims , the most deserving and we' 1 affected were reduced to the same positive want as tho base and fraudulent claimants . All tho thousands whoso solo business it had boon to minister to tho degrading vices and debauohory of the profligate Court of Lucknow found their occupation gone with the dynasty that had engendered and nursed their foul parasitical growth . By this

    class we were of course detested . Again , to use the words of the : author—^' There were many other innocent sufferers by the change of Government . Thousands of citizens fouiul employ in providing for the ordinary wants of the court and nobility . There were several hundreds in manufacturers , of honqU ; vh snakes .. The embroiderers of gold and silver thread were also reckoned by hundreds . The makers of rich , dresses , line turbans , highly-ornamented shoes , and many other subordinate trades , suffered severely from the cessation of the demand for articles which they manufactured . When we cap this column of " ready-made

    enemies" with the discontent of the urban , population , at the tax on opium , which more than balanced their satisfaction at the withdrawal of many old imposts , and the general hostility of all irregular classes to an established government , we shall have completed our rapid survey of the causes which , to our mind , , though not to the Commissioner ' s , were sufficient to range the inhabitants of Oudh with the outraged Brahmins of the Sepoy army , as promoters of the revolt , and to raise that occurrence from the level of a military - . mutiny to that of a provincial if not a national rebellion .

    How the fabric of our Upper Indian Empire was riven—how it tottered on its baser- ^ are now matters of history ; but , if truth must be told , the above causes might all have been in fruitless operation but- for the defect in military organisation , to which reference has been made ; the blind confidence which lulled men like Lawrence , Wheeler , and many more , while such restless spirits as Aloe Nuckec and Nana Sahib were scheming anational vendetta with 'barbaric ferocity and Oriental finesse ; and , lastly , the " one great capital error , " as Gubbins says , of denuding , or all but denuding , our old and recent conquests alike of European troops .

    From Meerut , in the north-west , to Dinapoor , in the south-east , two weak English regiments only were to be found . These were the 3 rd Bengal Fusiliers , at Agra , and the 32 nd Foot , at Luoknow . All our principal cities Were without European troops . There Were none at Delhi or at Bareilly ; none at Fyzabad , at Mirzapoor , or at Benares . And / worst of all , the important fortress of Allahabad , the key of the North-Western Provinces , was equally unprotected ! At the important station of Cawnpore was only the depot of the 32 nd Foot , . and a weak reserve company of Artillery . Throughout the entire province of Oudh we possessed but one English battery of artillery— all the rest were native .

    For the future , Mr . Gubbius augurs peace , tran quillity , and content . He is persuaded that the mass of the Oudh population , though their rajpoot class has ever recruited the ranks of the Bengal army , arc not , upon the whole , martial , but naturally orderly and peaceable , and driven only to draw the Sword by extreme insult or oppression . The turbulent talookdars once quelled , their forts effectually dismantled , their ordnance taken away , the now

    land settlement permitted to continue its salutary operation , and the faithful discriminately rewarded , 1 ) 0 believes that a really cflective , not a mere paper , government , based visibly on physical power of British arms and British bujonets—which tic holds , as now do all men , indispensable—may justly , conciliatingly , and yet without truckling fe ; ir of native prejudices , support the civilisation of the West in our Eastern empire until it may in time have force to stand alone .

    We have reviewed this work at tmusual lmgih , that such as arc not likely to possess it may have ft fairly accurate idea of its breadth and purport . It is , tlie book of the day ; and will long , iu . our opinion , be indispensable to * every-dny reaaors who would pretend to talk upon its subject mat lor . We hardly look , we . confess , for a inoro generally sound or comprehensive performance . Its publication is of decided importance , and , if what w « hi ' . ir bo true—that an edition was disposed of in a Tew days of tho dullest season—wo arc but conllriijnig instead of , as wo could have wished , anticipating and directing tho opinion of the public to that cld ' oct .

    Moue Books On India. Service ' And "A Tt...

    MOUE BOOKS ON INDIA . Service ' and "A ttvenlure MfflrVhTrrK * hnbe 0 ~ ItwMt * Mecntl Volunteer / forte , duriny the Jfnthm-i of 18 £ 7 * 08 . By Hubert Henry Wallace Dunl < n » , "V ' ¦ . 11 . 13 on tloy . Siva Months in British Hannah ; or . India beyond thi daayea in 1857 . By Chrlatophor T . Whiter . . Mji . Wai < laob Duni , op had observed witfioiit iip * prohonsion , during February and March , 3 3 •"' ., " rewfti'kablo transmission among tho Indian »; . . # of ocrttthi Uttlo oakos , or ohupatocs . Ho slni

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 11, 1858, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11091858/page/20/