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Leader (1850-1860), 24th December 1859, Edition 1 of 2, Page 1389, Untitled Article

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    • INDIA, ' and ¦ ¦ . ' ¦ . ' . INDIAN PROG'RES'S. «> —
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      Untitled Article

      appearance , and their peculiar yells , which are invocations to the Prophet . These priests take a particular care to finish the wounded Spaniards that lay on the ground , and they are seen to administer heavy blows with their muskets on the head and shoulders of those of their own men who show any signs of mercy . This sight enrages very much the Spanish soldiers , and the officers have no small trouble in preventing them from imitating the atrocities of the Moorish priests . One of the latter , remarkable for his dirty tunic and his terrific screams , had killed with his ' gumia' a young ensign and a soldier . He was preparing to stab a -wounded

      artilleryman , and was uttering then a perfectly diabolical yell , when a Spanish sergeant rushed upon him and plunged a bayonet into his opened mouth . The death of their ' saints ' always causes great discouragement among the Moors . My friend adds that he is now obliged , as well as the other officers , to . allow the soldiers to despatch with a bayonet thrust their wounded enemies , as these , when they can do no more , bite the legs of the Spaniards . The Emperor of Morocco has offered large prizes to those of his soldiers who should take guns .. This explains their wild and obstinate attacks against the artillerymen . "

      Untitled Article

      THE FIDELITY OF THE MADRAS ATIMY . The present number of the Calcutta Review contains an admirable article on the Madras Army . The Writer , throwing aside for the moment all arguments on the constitution best adapted for an Indian Army , describes the internal working of a Madras Regiment . His sketch niay be a little too favourable . ' The reviewer obviously sympathises strongly both with the men he commands , anil the system they obey . . But the sketch none the less proves its own truthfulness by its minuteness of detail , and its author has accomplished at least one feat—he has explained why the Madras Army—we speak of the Infantry line—remained faithful , and is likely to remain so . An organization more opposed to European ideas of military discipline it is difficult to conceive . Every one knew as a fact , of course , that the Madras sepoy carried his household with him ; but the effect of that arrangement , the boundlese influence its exercises on the daily life of ths soldier , can only be realised by a description minute and accurate as a photograph . The Madras regiment is , in fact , a clan engaged in British service , and encamped with all its women , children , baggage and property around it . The single fact that a Madras sepoy accumulates his property in his hut , spends his income in the lines , instead of remitting it to a fur-way village in Oudeor Rohilcund , explains much . It is the wives , however , who exercise a direct restraining influence . A native , with his imagination fired by the prospect of infinite gain to be secured as soon as sooiety is overturned , may throw his property to the winds . He will not throw his wife . A Madras regiment in mutiny must cither remain stationary , awaiting the hour of retribution , a course no regiment ever takes , or leave the women behind to be , as they fancy , the victims of the European soldiery , and without pay , or lumber along the road helplessly encumbered . The risk is too great , and the sepoys themselves quote their wives , as a final argument against the possibility of mutiny . Mutiny is an exceptional enso , but the wives , it is asserted , exercise a direct influence in favour of doily discipline . Thoy aro often daughters of the regiment , always thoroughly acquainted with the regulations , hours of drill , and calls of duty . Thoy cannot abide that their husbands should expose themselves to punishment , and as their tongues nro as long as those of all Asiatic women , or , for that matter , of all women , unrestrained by civilisation ; the unlucky sepoy foara the curtain lecture at least as much as the reprimand of the orderly room . A pensioner ' s wife expressed her notion on the point in the following very intelligible terms . Her husband , wo must promise , was a ponsionor just turned out of the linos for misconduct : — "I , too , am » servant of the Government , my father was a soldier . My husband served thirtytwo years , and I havo given my two sons to the same flag . Do you suppose If I had bcou hero , this old fool ( pointing to her husband ) could havo misbehaved himself in thia way ? Do you think I do not know the regulations of the service t x , too , am a child of the rogimont ; I was born , brought up , and married under your fl « # > and under your flag

      I will die . You have turned me out among a strange people , and I have been so for months now . Xet me coiuu back . I will swear below the colours of the regiment ^ rfiat no fault of this kind will occur again . If it doas , shoot me with musketry or blow . me away from n . gun . " . With the wife comes a troop of relatives , and the Madras soldier , wherever he may be when not on service , is at home in his lines . Another institution , not by any means so widely Jpnown , is that of recruit boys . The son of any native soldier , within the limit of seventy per regiment , maybe entertained as a recruit or pension boy . In practice they are entertuined as babies , and are taught to salute on parade as soon as they can walk . At fourteen they are regularly paid , and

      at sixteen are drafted -into the ranks , where they have some special privileges . So certain , indeed , is their promotion , owing to the education Government provides and enforces , that in one regiment , out of twenty native commissioned officers , ten were recruit boys , while of the havildars , they had four times their fair proportion . The benefit of this institution to the soldier is extreme . It enables him to keep his son under his own eye , without burdening himself , a privilege the force of which only those who know Asiatics can understand . An English father prefers that his fledglings should quit the nest and build for themselves . A Hindoo father looks on any migration of the kind as the greatest of misfortunes , and will coolly encounter comparative poverty to avoid it .

      "With the old organization of the Bengal army the introduction of either of these systems was impossible . Hindostanee wives will not emigrate , and the sepoy served anywhere from Th yatniyoo to Saugpr . The sons , therefore , stayed at home to be inoculated with village prejudices , left uneducated , and brought at last into the regiment as most loutish specimens of humanity . But should the plan advocated by the Lahore Committee . be adopted , and all native forces be employed within a short distance from their homes ^ the separation of families Hindostanee

      would cease to be imperative . The wife who will not go to a " foreign " country , will and does travel over the division . Indeed , we are are hot certain whether—sea service apart—the prejudice is wholly insuperable for longer distances The Hyderabad Contingent , for example , all Hindostanees , are accompanied by their families . It seems certain that no arrangement could paralyse sepoys so completely for sudden and murderous emeutes ; and it is the rapidity and secrecy rather than the power of the native soldiery which make them formidable mutineers .

      It is worthy of notice that the combination of castes and races recommended by most of the officers who have written on reorganisation is partially secured in Madras . In the regiment described there are : — Native Christians , 69 ; Mussulmans , 305 ; Hindostanees , 34 ; Mahrattas , 15 ; Telingas , 517 ; Tamul , 129 ; other low castes , 80 ; Indo-Britons , 18 ; total , 1 , 167 . For ourselves , we have no belief in these divisions ; the bond of military Hindoo

      brotherhood , and the subserviency of all castes to the Bramhun , soon destroy the contrifugal force of differences either of caste or creed . But the fact is still one to be honestly recorded on the side of the officers who have defended that view . It is , however , in the powerlessness for sudden emeutes produced by the presence of their families , and the contentment caused by the presence of their children , that we look for the sources of the fidelity of the Madras sepoy . — Friend of India .

      Untitled Article

      COTTON MANUFACTORIES . Fjsw men tire bettor -able to deal with the- question of cotton culture in India than Dr , Roylo , the wellknown Indian botanist . Long resident in this country officially connected with the cotton experiments lately instituted , and evidently qualified by educational pursuits , bent of mind , and education , to investigate such a subject , Dr . Roylo ' s opinions are of sufficient importance to demand attention , lie expresses , we see , his firm belief that no real progress will bo mado in the culture of cotton in India until the manufacturers and merchants of hnglanu shall send out European agents to reside permanently in the tracts in which the plnnt may be raised with success . The settlement of Europeans or their ngents in the cotton districts , with the oxpross purpose of encouraging tho natives to Improve tlio cultivation of their own , or to grow tho American cotton , is the moaBuro which has been recommended us tuo ono thing oBBontial for the extension and improvemont of this groat staple . As tlie trade lias ^ m described to bedroll table , it , indeed , . appears remarkable that no planters should have , established the msolvos for an objoot which is considered of such importance by tho manufacturers of Lancashire . 1 foot that very little interest has hitherto boon taken in tho manufacture of cotton is ono ot

      the reasons that have prevented the employment of Europeau enterprise in the field offered by this country . There are hopeful signs , however , for the future . Two cotton mills have been in operation here for some time , and a third has been in contemplation since 1857 . It was said six months ago that the last , which belongs to the East India Company , had ordered machinery from England , the selection of which was left to the . managing director ; but owing , we fancy , to some disagreement as to the terms proposed by him for undertaking the work , no steps have yet been taken to effect this object . The company , we believe , are besides deficient in funds , and thus the completion of the works , which have been commenced , has b _ en put ofTfor the

      present . It is to be hoped , however , that there is no cessation of interest on the subject ; for if the Company will carry out their scheme they will find it has advantages in its favour which fully guarantee its success . The Cowasjee Nanabhoy Company is earning at the rate of 30 or 40 par cent ., the mills turning out 2 , 500 lbs . of cotton twist daily , and this is but an index of what may ha expected from a mill more advantageously situated . Land is cheap at Callian , labour essily procured , gooi water found in abundance , and the station is at the junction of the Berar and Jubbulpore lines of rrilway , by means of which the transport of cotton from the L > eccan and the North-West Provinces will be cheaply and conveniently effected , ami the twist from the manufactory expeditiously sent to the interior .

      European manufacturers in this country have a vast field of usefulness before them . Their establishment , in the different districts interested , in the improvement of the cotton of India is all that is required greatly to extend and improve the culture and commerce of all kinds in the country . Then we may expect that the condition of the people will also be materially improved . There will be a fall in the cost of all the articles of comfort and clothing required by the working classes ; and this alone will be in its effects equivalent to a souhil change of the most important kind . In England the manufacturing interest has lately made great progress . Our hardware is the very beau ideal of what iron should be , and our Manchester goods are the best that can be had for the money all thy world over . The great improvement in these arts has not bean

      without its influence on the condition of the people , inasmuch as the real or commodity price of their labour is a great deal better than it was a few years ago . The marvels and triumphs of the last fifty years would have . been impossible but for the steam engine , the loom , and the spinning jenny . Sidney Smith had a semi-serious glimpse of this truth when he averred that the modern destiny of the British people was , mainly , the weaving of calico . In plain earnest , from this vulgar-looking process came the power that humbled' Napoleon . Since his fall it has founded colonies , changed the face of politics , and given new laws to commerce . The loom and its appliances will be found at the root of most of the reforms that have been pressed on the Government of England—and few reforms , we know , have ever been obtained except by some outward

      pressure . In India we want professional men of experience and ability to superintend manufactories ; every other circumstance is favourable to their success . Cowasjee Nanabhoy , in establishing the first cotton manufactory in Tardeo , and by Jiis perseverance ensuring success to the experiment , has shown a degree of energy and enterprise wliieh is raro among his own countrymen . His shares are now at about fifty per cent , premium . Ho gave twelve per cent , last year , when Uis mill was only working partially . This year a much higher dividend will be oQWrtud -. say twenty-five or thirty per cent .-B ombay Gazette . , ,

      Untitled Article

      An Impkomptv Bvu . Fight . —The specialcorrespondent of tho Times , describing tho lubberly way Fn whtoh thelnnding ' of Spanish . troops and stores at Oeuta was effected Says :- "An incident «"*«»«*» - fstic of Spain diversified , and for u time cnl youed the wearisome toils of the night . Two bulb got loose when landed , took up their station in a dry ° 1 othe crook , and would not bo captured or listen toany terms of capitulation . For the bettor part of SCthey were completely masters of tho situntlon . The horses could not bo brought up because oro , with lowered horns and "i ""™ ^ **? " «• barred tho way . Tho bystanders were ot courses dSlighted While two or throe bold fellows made attempts long Irultloae , to fetter the bulls the «™ i * fl t ail the boots that lay upon , tho quay , the tertaiaos

      lookIng down upon tho aoeno ub Irom ofa bull-ring , Ami shouting- and applauding fts the ? U wild ftnfemla dashed at thoIr » "tatfonl » t-, and compelled thorn to a n » oedy rutront . At lwt-tlw boastaworo soourod , and tho landing continued , but it Jm long past midnight botoro it concluded . "

      India, ' And ¦ ¦ . ' ¦ . ' . Indian Prog'res's. «≫ —

      INDIA , ' and ¦ ¦ . ' ¦ . ' . INDIAN PROG'RES'S . «> —

      Untitled Article

      No- 509- Dec . 24 , 1859 . J THE LEiDEB . 1389

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 24, 1859, page 1389, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2326/page/9/