military men corresponding with the press,
was, to every intent and purpose, a perfect
farce and a dead letter. On the staff of the
Meerut paper were several gentlemen
belonging to each branch of the service. These
gentlemen not only wrote, but some of them
wrote for pay—for so much per column;
while the correspondence columns were filled
with letters from covenanted civilians, or
commissioned officers, judges, and magistrates,
and their subordinates; brigadiers, colonels,
majors, captains, and subalterns contributed
anonymously whenever the spirit moved
them. Ay! and frequently the members of
the staff of the governor-general and of the
commander-in-chief would not only send
items of news, but comments thereon; and I
have reason to know that this practice was
continued up to the date of the recent
outbreak, and is still continued. By the way,
the late Major Thomas was virtually the
editor of the Mofussilite at Agra at the time
he received his death wound in the field of
battle. The Delhi newspaper was also
written for, by civilians and military men of
all grades.

It was the press that introduced to the
notice of the government many clever and
able men, who had no other interest to help
them. I could mention scores of instances,
but two will suffice. Herbert Benjamin
Edwards, of the Bengal Fusiliers, the
" Brahminee Bull " of the Delhi Gazette, and Mr.
Campbell of the Civil Service, who was
"given up " to Lord Dalhousie as the
" Delator" of the Mofussilite, and promoted to
an office of great responsibility. In the last
mentioned paper there also appeared in
eighteen hundred and forty-seven, forty-eight,
and forty-nine, a series of leading articles on
military reform and other matters, some of
which attracted the notice of Sir Charles
Napier. They came from the pen of General
(then Major) Mansfield, of the Fifty-third
Foot, and at present chief of the staff of Sir
Colin Campbell. It was not to silence these
men, who displayed their ability in the
newspapers, that they were placed in staff employ,
or promoted. On the contrary, I know that
they were expected—and, in some instances,
requested— to use their pens in defence of
certain government measures; and that, on
several occasions, they did vigorous battle
with their former literary chief, the editor
of the paper in which they first made their
appearance in print. I remember that on
one occasion the editor, on being beaten
in an argument, headed his admission of the
fact with the following lines:

"Keen are our pangs; but keener far to feel
We nursed the pinion that impelled the steel.''

There are no newsmen in the upper
provinces of India, nor, indeed, in any of the
presidencies. Whoever wishes to take a
journal must subscribe for a certain period—
year, or half-year. The rates for the
Mofussilite, or Delhi Gazette, were three pounds
twelve shillings per annum, or two pounds
per six months. The net profits of both
these papers, in eighteen hundred and forty-
nine and fifty were upwards of five thousand
pounds per annum. With the exception of
the Friend in India, when under the control
of its original proprietor, these journals of
the north-west were by far the most
remunerative of any in the East.

There was a native newspaper published
at Meerut, called the Jam-i-Jumsheed, which
title signifies a bowl or glass into which, if
you look, you will see what transpires in the
whole world. The history of this paper is
very curious.

It was founded, without the knowledge,
privity, or consent of the conductor of the
European journal, by the head pressman of
his establishment, who was a brahmin. The
editor of this native print, which was
lithographed, in the Oordoo language, was the
moonshee of the English press at Meerut.
He was well skilled in English, and his chief
employment was translating the native
correspondence. Having constant access to the
desks of the compositors, this press moonshee
acquired a knowledge of every item of news
furnished by European as well as native
correspondents, and of this knowledge he failed
not to avail himself. This, however, was but
a small evil, comparatively. Unknown to
the conductor of the Meerut paper, a much
greater evil arose from the publication of
the native print; availing himself of such
sources of information its editor seized the
views of his employer, views intended only
for European eyes, and gave his own version
of them to his readers in the Hindoostanee
language. And what was equally
mischievous, he published quantities of matter
which the conductor of the Meerut paper
thought proper to suppress, after it was
set up in type. These were the morsels
in which the native editor took most
delight. A single instance will suffice. The
following appeared in the leading columns of
the Jam-i-Jumsheed; the facts having been
kept out of the columns of the Meerut paper,
at the instance of the friends of the gentleman
who was guilty of the indiscretion:

"An act of retributive justice has just been
committed by the worthy magistrate of this district.
It was supposed that an escaped convict from the jail
was secreted in a village about four miles distant from
this cantonment. ln the dead of the night, the magistrate,
at the head of a large body of police, visited the
village, aroused the inhabitants from their slumbers,
and demanded the culprit. The villagers denied any
knowledge of him. The magistrate, with characteristic
kindness and consideration, gave them half-an-hour to
make up their minds. At the expiration of that time,
as the culprit was not produced, he set fire to the
village. In those flames, which illuminated the
country for miles round, thirteen lives were sacrificed;
namely, those of three men, four women, and six
children. One of the unfortunate women was in
labour at the time. Some malicious natives in the