bound hand and foot, by a priesthood, whose interest it is to perpetuate ignorance and barbarism. We do believe that what we have done for the people at large, has given dire offence to the Brahmans. At present affairs are in a transition-state. The Brahmans feel that their influence is declining, and will decline still more, as the effects of European education diffuse themselves more and more over the face of the country. But they have still power to lead the people astray, and especially that class-the soldiery -which is least exposed to counteracting influences. That they have been busily employed in disseminating a belief of the intention of the British Government to interfere, in a far more peremptory and decided manner, with the religion of the people, is a fact which is rarely questioned. They have, doubtless, pointed to repeated measures of interference, of nó great import, perhaps, when viewed singly, but alarming in their aggregation. The abolition of Suttee-the suppression of female infanticide-the prohibition of the cruel ceremonies attending the Churruck Poojah-the modification of the Hindoo law of inheritance-the promotion of female education-the legalization of the marriage of Hindoo widows--the diminished endowment of religious institutions -and the relaxation of the once stringent rules interdictory of all, even indirect or constructive, encouragement of educational ⚫ or missionary efforts for the evangelization of the people, are, doubtless, all referred to as indications of the insidious endeavors of the Feringhees to break down the walls of caste. A little thing will fill the cup of suspicion and alarm, to the brim. Nothing could answer the purpose better than the greased cartridges, of which we have heard so much. Alone, the cartridges would not have stirred a single company to revolt. But, added to all these foregone manifestations of our disregard of Hindoo superstitions, and coupled, moreover, with vague and mysterious rumors of some more open and undisguised assault to be committed upon Hindooism, under the protection of an overwhelming European force, even a less outrage than this might have made the seething caldron bubble over in rebellion.

Still, it may be said, that the proximate cause of the outbreak in Bengal, is to be found in certain lies disseminated, with a malicious object, among the native soldiery; and that if the authorities in India and England had been duly acquainted with the state of feeling in the army, they might have anticipated and counteracted the evil influences of those who have exerted themselves, with too much success, to fan the latent fires of disaffection into a blaze. There are, indeed, two distinct branches of inquiry; the one, why the disaffection arose; the other, why, having arisen, it was not allayed by the European officers before it broke out into acts of violence. If proper relations had been maintained between the Sepoy and his English officer, there would never have existed this dangerous delusion, "that they should believe a lie." The Sepoy is very credulous. There is, indeed, a childlike simplicity in the readiness with which he believes and ponders over the most absurd story. But he has far greater faith in the word of the white man than in that of his own people. A few words of explanation from an officer esteemed by the men under his command, will speedily remove a dangerous error rankling in the Sepoy's mind, and send him back to his lines a contented man and a good soldier. Fortified by the assurances of his captain, he will be proof against the designing falsehood of the emissary of evil. the emissary of evil. No one, knowing how easily the Sepoy is alarmed, will doubt for a moment the effect which the greased cartridges may have had upon his mind, especially when interpreted to him by one bent upon mischief. But no one knowing how docile and tractable he is, when properly managed by his European commander, will have any more doubt that this alarm might have been easily dissipated by a few words of timely explanation.

Then, why were these words of timely explanation not spoken? We desire not to be understood as making any sweeping assertions. We do not say that in no case has a statement been made on the subject of the cartridges, tending to allay the alarm and irritation in the Sepoy's mind. It may have been made in time; it may have been

made too late; or it may not have been made at all. We will assume the worst, although we have no information to lead us to a belief in anything better. But it is impossible to resist the conviction that, in the greater number of cases, the explanation was not offered; and that regiments have broken out into rebellion, because there have not been intimate relations between the Bengal Sepoy and the British officer.

And why? Simply for this reason: that it has been the inevitable tendency of the social, the administrative, and the material progress of the nineteenth century, to weaken the bonds between the Hindostanee soldier and the European officer. Little by little, the English in India have been more and more un-Hindoo-ised by the growing civilization of the West. In the old time, he conformed himself, more or less, to the habits of the people. If he did nothing else, he conformed himself, with wonderful alacrity, to their vices. He might not adopt their religion, but he very soon for sook his own. There were few Christian churches; there were few Christian ministers; there were few Christian women. He, therefore, soon ceased to worship, and he found his female companions among the women of the country. He lived in the Zenana. He participated in the ceremonial festivities of the people. He was all things to all men-now a Hindoo, and now a Mussulman. He was a Sepoy officer; and content to be a Sepoy officer. His regiment was his home. The native officers were his brethren; the soldiers were his children. He spoke their language-though, in all probability, he could not read a single word. Reading, indeed, was not part of his vocation. He, therefore, talked all the more. He was glad to converse with his native officers. The soobahdar or jemadar of his company was ever welcome to his bungalow. He had always a kind word to say to them; he seldom failed to ask what was going on in the lines; and what was the bazaar gup, or gossip. It is the pleasure of the native officer to be communicative. He is never slow to talk if he is encouraged. He will not hoard up his grievances if he can find

a sympathizing listener: he will not hatch sedition in secret if he is encouraged to make a confidant of one who has any power to redress them. So, when he visited his officer in the olden time, when Englishmen were content to be mere soldiers in India, he freely disclosed to him all that was done and was talked of in the lines. If sinister rumors were afloat, they were communicated to the officer, who investigated their origin, and explained the circumstances in which they originated. The native soldier then carried back to his comrades words of comfort and assurance. The lie was strangled; the delusion vanished; the panic subsided; and men went to parade with cheerful faces as before.

That this is not the case now, or, if ever the case, is the exception, and not the rule, is generally admitted. The Englishman in India has become more English-the officer has become less a soldier. We no longer leave our country, with its religion, its manners, its literature, its domesticities behind us, when we set our faces towards Calcutta or Bombay. We carry with us to the East our civilization, our propriety, our old ideas and associations, and, as far as possible, our old way of life. We do not cast off the mother country, but still turn fondly towards it; and as increased facilities for communication multiply around us, we hanker more and more after home. The English drawing-room has supplanted the native Zenana. Instead of the dusky paramour, the palefaced English wife has become the companion of the officer's solitude, and the mother of his children. A wide severance between the conquered and the conquering races is the result of this social change. Some may lament it-some may say that we have become too English, and that a greater assimilation to the manners and customs of the people, and a more thorough appreciation of their tone of thought, and a more enlarged sympathy with their feelings, are absolutely necessary to insure our permanent occupation of the country. But this is simply impossible. The change of which we speak is the inevitable result of the civilization of the nineteenth century. We cannot Hindooize ourselves again, any

more than the butterfly can return to the status ante of the grub. We cannot demolish our Christian churches, or burn our English books, or place a five months' voyage between India and Great Britain. When we consider the atrocities which have been inflicted during the last few months upon delicate women and innocent children, it is not unreasonable to surmise that there may be less willingness than heretofore to transplant English ladies to so perilous a land; but even if this, as we greatly doubt, were to be the permanent result of our recent disasters, there are other influences (not the least of these being the progress of public opinion with respect to religion and morality), which would prevent our again assuming the old loose garments which once we wore in true Hindostanee fashion. We have divested ourselves of them for

ever.

But is it only by ceasing to be Englishmen-by ceasing to be Christians, that we can win the confidence and affection of the natives? We believe that there are other and better ways, but scarcely as the present military system of the country is maintained. There has been long an outcry against the old exclusive civil service and the regulation system. All our more recent acquisitions of territory, as the Punjab, Pegu, Nagpore, and Oude, have been administered since their annexation, under the "non-regulation system," by a mixed commission, composed of civil and military officers-the latter generally predominating in respect of numbers. These military administrators are commonly the picked men of the service. They are not the sons and nephews of directors, or young men of good connections at home, strongly recommended to the Governor-General, but men of proved capacity and undoubted vigor, acquainted with the native languages, with the country, and with the people, and full of activity of the best kind. These are the men who are most wanted with their regiments, but they are not suffered to remain soldiers. The temptation to accept any extra-regimental employment is great. There is better pay, more credit, a better prospect of gaining future distinction, and rising to eminence

in the service. The allurement, therefore, is not resisted; and regiments, already denuded of their best officers to supply the ordinary requirement of the staff, are still further stripped, and all the remaining men of any mark and likelihood carried off to administer new provinces, or to take the place in other detached situations of those who have been selected for the government of our new acquisitions. Thus the civil administration is strengthened, but the strength of the army is sacrificed to it.

Almost contemporaneously with the extension of the "non-regulation system," was the extension of Public Works in India. This, also, was a laudable movement. It is not to be doubted that it was promoted, in no small degree, by a pressure from this country. The East India Company had never been unmindful of the importance of great material works, remunerative and reproductive; but the pace at which they had proceeded had been too slow for home-bred politicians, and there was a clamor for greater speed. Large sums of money were devoted to roads, to canals, and other great works of public utility. The Department of Public Works became an important department of the state. Great numbers of officers were required to give effect to our mea

sures.

Young military men took to the study of engineering, and came to England to work upon the railways. Any one with a little knowledge of practical science felt himself secure of obtaining an appointment in the public works' department; so here was another mode of escape from that penal settlement-the military cantonment. It was, doubtless, a movement in the right direction; but, excellent as it was in itself, it struck another blow at the efficiency of our native army. More active enterprising young soldiers were carried away for detached employment, and the residue became scantier, more dissatisfied, and more inefficient, until the attachment and confidence of the Sepoy towards his British officers became little more than things of the past; and this, perhaps, less because the number of officers left with a regiment was so small, than because the quality was so indifferent. We have no doubt that a few good officers

are better than many bad ones. We have some tangible proof of this in the Company's Irregular regiments, which have mostly only three European officers, a commandant, a second in command, and an adjutant, and yet are always in an admirable state of efficiency. These officers are picked officers; their appointments are staff appointments, hungered after like all others. A man in command of an Irregular corps is satisfied with it; the officers beneath him aspire to nothing better than the command, in due course, of the regiment to which they have long been attached. The regiment is their home, the soldiers are their comrades. They are proud of their connection with the corps, and are eager to exalt it; whilst the officer with the Regular regiment sits loosely to his duty, and is continually longing to escape. It is of less importance that we should secure the services of good than of many officers with the Sepoy regiments. But it is impossible that any man should be a good regimental officer who looks upon himself merely as a bird of passage with his regiment-dislikes, and perhaps despises his duties, and is expending all his energies in efforts to get himself transferred to the staff.

The "Staff," indeed, has, for some years past, been gradually swallowing up the commissioned ranks of the Indian army. The intention of employing military officers in civil offices was, we repeat, an excellent one, and, so far as regards the administration of the country, it has been eminently successful. But it has destroyed the military feeling and the military capacity of hundreds, who might have become first-rate soldiers. The tendency, indeed, of our entire system has been to degrade regimental duty, in all its degrees, to the utmost possible extent, until the zeal and the pride of the soldier are almost wholly extinct.

Enough we think has been advanced to indicate-firstly, what have been the predisposing causes of the disaffection of the native army of India; and, secondly, what has prevented that disaffection from being allayed before it had become dangerous— in a word, the active and the passive causes of the recent disastrous outbreak. In both cases, an undue zeal for precipitate reform

has been at the bottom of the mischief. The wheels of progress would have rolled on surely and safely, without creating alarm or rousing national prejudices into violent action, and great moral and material improvements would have struck root in the soil, when the country was ready for them. But the pressure from without has given to these wheels of progress a forced and unnatural rapidity of rotation, and we have been roused to a sense of our danger by seeing the State machine rushing down the hill to destruction, beyond the power of human agency to control its headlong course. The Government of the East India Company has often been called a 66 drag." It was a drag that was much needed. But Parliament, the Platform, and the Press, scouted the dicta that India was not yet ripe for this or that measure, and that to reform effectually we must reform slowly, as the antiquated conservatism of the effete oligarchy of Leadenhall Street. The wisdom of the festina lente doctrine was ignored. The prudence, which shook its head and whispered caution, was derided. There was not wanting, perhaps, some just ground of complaint, that the Government of the Company moved slowly-that it carried the quieta non movere principle a little too far-and that it needed some external stimulus to keep it from falling in the rear of the general progress of the age. But it was very possible to fall into an opposite extreme; and, by attempting to sow broadcast reform and improvement over the land, before the soil was ready to receive them, to do more to retard the desired progress than by advancing, with painful effort, as though the tarda podagra were in every limb.

We have said, and we cannot too emphatically repeat, that we are not to cease from doing good, because there may be temporal danger in the enlightenment of the people. But the highest wisdom has taught us prudence, and counselled us against pouring new wine into old bottles. They who have the most genuine-the most heartfelt desire to root out error from the land, ought to be the most eager to inculcate caution, lest all their efforts be defeated by bringing