The Calcutta correspondent of the Times, telegraphing on.. Sunday, explained
the recent conflagrations at Poonah. They are attributed to " dacoits," that is, bands of armed insurgents,. who are plundering villages in the Mahratta, country. The leader of these gangs, said to be one Wassadeo Bhulwund, for- merly a clerk in the Financial Department, describes himself as Minister to Sivajee II.—Sivajee was the founder of the Mahratta power—and has put forward a manifesto, in which he states- that taxes must be reduced, public works opened, native trades- encouraged, and European salaries cut down, or else his follow- ers will kill the Governor, plunder Europeans, and excite a new Mutiny. He is suspected of having fired the buildings in Poonah, and has certainly plundered the village of Polhuspe, near Panwell, just opposite Bombay, on the other side of the harbour. The Governor has ordered troops to be employed, instead of police,. and has offered a reward of 1,000 rupees for Wassa,deo, and, according to his latest telegram, read in the House of Commons, the disturbances are ending. According to other accounts, however, incendiarism is increasing in
the Deccan, and the excitement in the Poonah district is very great. There is no doubt that great distress exists among the Mahrattas, aggravated by the delay of the Government in affording them the promised redress against the exactions of the native usurers, who, as was shown by a recent Commission of Inquiry, have gradually enslaved the peasantry by loans, partly real, partly fictitious, at exorbitant interest. A remedy was promised, but Lord Lytton has since been far too completely occupied by this Afghan expedition ; while Sir R. Temple has been absent in Scinde, remedying, as far as he can, the deficiencies of the transport department. The extent and seriousness of the movement depend in great measure upon accident, as the slightest apparent success of the insurgents would throw the whole country into a flame ; but the Mahrattas will not bear too much oppression. Their tradition of brigandage, warfare, and victory is too strong for that.
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