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 one 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 2 idea: 'Delhi is fallen!' 'Delhi is The question then is now, 'What You have built up a vast empire. I think the subject may be looked to look to the civil question, and see To begin then with the military 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 |