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victs in opening out roads in the district of Bhaugulpore. they are known to be adverse to service of any kind; high wages do not tempt them to any servile labour; before the outbreak those employed on the Railroad were few in number. A Sonthal convict, then, kept and guarded, may indeed be forced to work upon the roads; but unless in the condition of a close prisoner, it is questionable whether any other of the race will not either flee to the jungles rather than fulfil his sentence. And others than convicts cannot now be had, because they cannot be visited with their merited punishment.

While we hasten to bring our thoughts upon this subject to a close, the question oft and again recurs, will the Sonthals indeed be re-settled in the Damun-i-koh, or shall they give place to a new people from the plains of Bengal? And if the latter be the event, where must the survivors among the insurgents betake themselves? We hear already of bodies of even thousands of Sonthals having crossed without let or remonstrance the Grand Trunk Road, though they were even intreated to return to the Damun, or occupy the banks of the Barakur river. It may be better that they should live in the south country, than starve idly among the Ghats of the Vindya chain. Yet it is much to be feared that this permission will be found to have been very premature; and a vigilant espionage, backed by a cordon of strong military posts both on the north and the south of the Damooda river, may possibly be not only an useful but a necessary measure. The feelings and temper of the race, their doings and status through the next few months, but particularly on the approach of the rains must be most strictly watched. A love of plunder if not of bloodshed has been excited both by the induced habit and by the comparative impunity which the Sonthals have enjoyed. They witnessed no Martial Law till a late hour, when it should have been declared in the first week of the revolt; when established it was but partially exercised, and soon withdrawn. The punishment it brought though severe was not sufficient, and was but very temporary. The Sonthals will surely not fear a second trial of independence when the first has been so successful, and so leniently visited. As yet they have not only disregarded, but refused the invitations held out to them to return to the Damun-i-koh; and it seems exceedingly doubtful, that they ever will re-settle in the tract.'

If they should persist in this course, it will of course be a matter of not a moment's difficulty to find other parties anxious to take up the vacated lands, and far less liable to be deceived or imposed upon by muhajuns not more cunning than they. But the Sonthals are not exterminated; there are thousands wandering about the Ghats; though they may have been participators

in rebellion, individuals cannot now under the system which has been adopted be selected from their numbers for punishment; they should therefore by every means be induced by the Government and the authorities employed in the new non-Regulation district to re-settle quietly in the Damun; for the country is more likely to be benefited, and the jungles cleared under their management than that of Bengalee cultivators; and as a late learned professor of political and economical science was wont to inculcate, the permanent gain and advantage of Governments and the proprietors of the soil are identical with the interests of the community, who cultivate the ground. The Sonthals have rebelled indeed and rendered themselves the enemies not only of the opulent Bengalees who brought on the movement, and deserved their fury, but of the many ryots around who never offended them, but whom they attacked, when the lust of bloodshed and plunder was fully aroused. Yet that condign retribution which once might have been visited upon them has been foregone; the proper time and occasion for its infliction has passed away; the submission of the now-obedient must be accepted. It has always seemed to us a great mistake that the military expeditions which were directed to sweep the valley of the Damun-i-koh, were not extended to all the pergunnahs southward and westward of that tract, where it was known that large numbers of the insurgents had repaired, and that others would follow. Until these had completely submitted themselves, little was gained or to be expected by marching through an empty and deserted valley. But no military forces scoured these tracts; and if they did not follow the Sonthals, it could not be supposed the Sonthals would be attracted to their company. They should, we think, have been hunted out, by a competent military force wherever they had gone, and compelled to return and submit themselves; and expressly forbidden to wander forth again without license. It is not improbable that this course would have prevented the second outbreak on the Monghyr border in the month of January last. This policy, there is reason to think, must even now be adopted, and Martial Law again be declared, and maintained so long as it is found necessary to employ the military in active service in any of the disturbed tracts. If some such steps be not adopted, and while the season is propitious it is not improbable that the absconded Sonthals will again and for a long period harass the country wherein they are concealed. We conceive that they should be surrounded, and hunted up everywhere, that none should be allowed to move to the south of the Damooda river or of the Grand Trunk Road, that they should be compelled, by force, if need be, to return to the Damun-i-koh,

and to the wasted country in Bhaugulpore and Beerbhoom, to rebuild the ruined villages, restore the desolate fields to cultivation, open roads, and advance general public works; and do this under watch and guard, for otherwise they will run away; and that this state of things should be continued, until they are completely tranquillized, and reconciled to their allegiance. The apparent illegality of such measures is, as we have before expressed, no illegal, or unconstitutional, or improper exercise of the rights of civil government. The expense can hardly be greater than that which it is already contemplated to incur in the maintenance of military garrisons, as well as of a new and augmented military police. We would not check any voluntary communications between the Sonthals, and the Bengalees, not even with the muhajun class; for trade is humanizing; but the Sonthals should be made fully to comprehend the meaning and use of police laws, and judicial courts; for this they have never yet understood. We have seen many anecdotes of their extreme astonishment at witnessing, during recent operations, the arrest and punishment of lordly Bengalee baboos, who used to be their irresponsible tyrants. That all tyranny, therefore, is illegal, and that redress on that account is sure to be had, they should be led clearly to see and understand. The several new offices being created in the new official district should be under the guidance of a single superior, sensible and experienced; one, as it has been expressed :

"Who unites soldierly activity and nerve, great calmness of judgment, and immoveable tenacity of purpose. He may raise a race from barbarism to civilization, turn a country of jungle and ravine into a fertile province. And the man, who makes rebellion impossible by the elevation of the Sonthals, may claim a place in English opinion by the side of the foremost of Indian names.'

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We aspire yet to see the Sonthal people, endowed with many good and estimable qualities, thus elevated, and hereafter refined, and totally restored in public opinion. There is too, another, and a material element of civilization, which it is proposed to try.

Mr. Drose, a missionary, has long laboured in Bhaugulpore, he is well acquainted with the Sonthals; he has borne his testimony, that the Sonthal villages, which contained the few of that race that have learnt any of the principles of Christianity, were the last to join in the insurrection, and then were urged probably by a pressure from without. This grand, this most essential, and by far the most effective element of progress and civilization the Church Missionary Society of old England are purposing to introduce. How large an effect must it produce. And amongst the Sonthals there are no castes; there are no ancient

prejudices on religious points; there are no deterring ties of a pledged faith, of adherence to treaty and expressed or implied promise, to hinder the mighty Government of India from an active and beneficent co-operation with these benevolent designs. How must the philanthropist, the earnest believer in Christianity, the warm friend and well-wisher of India, and her governors, both imperial and local, desire that the name of the Government of India may yet be associated with so great and good a cause, that the great Government of India may accept the honor and the privilege of a leading participation in such a furtherance of the material welfare of a race, once their bitter and troublesome enemy, but converted into the most faithful, and exemplary of her allies. Does she not hear the cry ? the echo of a still small voice from those unhappy jungles? It calls for that, which after all, is the only ultimate real want of a nation, as of an individual, doomed to the dust, like the countless generations, and mighty empires before them, the light of real knowledge, the glory of real life.

ART. VIII.-1. Official and Descriptive Catalogue of the Madras

Exhibition of 1855.

2. Madras Exhibition of 1855. Catalogue Raisonnée of the thirty Classes into which the Articles in the Exhibition are divided, with an Inder of the Subjects comprised in each Class, and of the names of Exhibitors: compiled for the use of the Jurors. By Lieut. H. P. HAWKES, S. A., Commissary General, Assistant to the Director of Arrangements to the Madras Exhibition. Published by authority of the Sub-Committee of Arts and Manufactures. Madras, 1855.

3. Jury Reports of the Madras Exhibition of 1855.

FIVE years have not yet passed away since the great Exhibition of 1851, the most remarkable event of the many which mark the course of industrial progress. Most of us can recollect the doubt and distrust with which this gigantic scheme was regarded by most people, and the contempt and ridicule with which it was treated by others. Few were sanguine enough to anticipate a great success, such as, notwithstanding numerous imperfections, it is now on all hands admitted to have attained.

One great element of this success was doubtless the comprehensiveness of the scheme. It has, we believe, been frequently remarked, but it is not the less worthy of repetition, that a less comprehensive scheme would in all probability have been a signal failure. The time at which it was held was likewise in the highest degree favorable, and the bold and original conception of the building was no doubt another element in the successful result.

Notwithstanding the brief period which has elapsed since the close of the great London Exhibition of 1851, it has had many imitators. Some, as was to be expected, were hasty schemes not duly organised, and terminated in failure. Others, smaller in scale, have nevertheless been highly deserving of praise, and of record. It is highly satisfactory to know that the last great imitator, or rather friendly rival, the Paris Exhibition of 1855, having surmounted the obstacles of evil times, has been very generally recognised as successful, and has even in some departments made marked strides in advance of that of 1851.

To the great Exhibition of 1851, India contributed largely. In all the Presidencies, Committees were organised and objects of interest, both manufactured goods and raw produce, were forwarded to London, where some of them, especially the jewellery, formed one of the most attractive features of the Exhibition. The specimens of raw produce were in some instances less attractive. Packed in haste, upon a sudden emergency, their origin and nature was frequently not readily deMARCH, 1856.

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