The advices from India and-China. are of kind to call
forth the croakers. Although there is no immediate crisis in India, there are many untoward symptoms. The standing evil of an annual finance deficiency is not amended ; but at Banda we see a village revolting against the tax-collectors. At the same time, at Alipore, we see a rabble route of soldiers permitted by their offi- cers to sack a village whose men had resented undue freedoms taken with the women. The duel tolerated at Banda, in which a gentleman is .challenged for being ." generally disagreeable," and is seteerely wounded; and the.court-martial on Lieutenant- Rose for appealing to the civil power against a person who had threatened violence,—these are trifles which combine with many other instances to show the lax state of discipline and moral feel- ing in that army to which we owe the safety of India ; its pos- session, its defence from border tribes, the very collection of its revenue. While such is the state of affairs within India, we see it boasted that, the Afreedees may at last be, not conquered, but shut out by blocking up their passes ; as Alexander is told to have shut out the unconquerable tribe of (Jog and Mago,g ; as the le- gions of Rome did strive to shut out the unconquerable Caledonians
a manner the most unsatisfactory : it looks just like the Ail Chinese evasive modes of repelling foreigners. It is the first in- stance of the kind in the reign of the present Emperor, and would indicate a reactionary turn to the status quo. If so, we may again have to conquer Canton, take possession of more islands, and threaten the capital,—processes not uneffieacious, but costly.
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