The Revolt in India
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THE REVOLT IN INDIA.
The news from India, though not of great importance, is still interesting. Delhi still holds out, but Cawnpore, a city upon which the fate of the North West depended, has been retaken. In two or three battles and skirmishes the insurgents had been worsted. There are no signs of insubordination in the Madras Presidency, the Punjaub or in the South. The European forces will soon reach eighty thousand men, and we may reasonably suppose that the insurrection is drawing to a close.
The motive power of the whole rebellion appears to have been religious fanaticism and hatred of the Christian faith. A false spirit of religion has again been the cause of bloodshed, rapine and crimes unutterable.
In England the outrages committed by the insurgents have a roused a deep-seated, vindictive feeling that will be satisfied with nothing short of the most signal and summary vengeance. It prevails among all classes, high and low. In one form or another, half the great body of the people are personally interested in the matter, and through all this vast body a universal thrill of horror runs with the arrival of every fresh account of the inhuman cruelties—the horrible atrocities—committed by the native miscreants on helpless prisoners and delicate women and children. This wide spread feeling is reflected on the pages of the English press as in a mirror. From the Times to Punch, there is but one tone, with variations. The concentrated wrath of the “leading journal” finds vent in solid leaders, that fully justify its claim to the title of “The Thunderer,” while Punch, setting the magic pencils of its artists to work, represents the British Lion in propria persona, with mane erect and eyes flashing fire, in the act of springing upon the Bengal Tiger, who with his paws upon the breast of a prostrate woman, awaits the onset.
That people could be found to justify such execrable barbarities as those practiced by the Sepoy mutineers—barbarities so hideous that the types almost refuse to record them—would be to us inexplicable, did we not know to what lengths a blind prejudice will carry men. We believe it is actually proposed, in New York, to hold a meeting of “sympathy” with these fiends incarnate, who have far surpassed in their atrocities anything recorded on the bloodiest pages of the history of warfare, civilised or savage. What particular political object is to be subserved by such a move we know not, but certain it is that the getters up of and the speakers at such a meeting ought to be overwhelmed by the contempt and execration of every man who has the smallest pretensions either to reason or humanity. But we have no idea that such an assemblage will ever take place. Even the “roughs” and offscourings of New York are not quite besotted enough for that.