THE TALE OF THE GREAT MUTINY.
The Tale of the Great Mutiny. By W. H. Fitchett, B.A., LL.D.
With Portraits and Maps. (Smith, Elder, and Co. 6s.)—By an unfortunate oversight this very admirable book, which fully main- tains the high standard of the author's earlier work, has not yet received in these columns the words of praise that it deserves. In our opinion, the story of the Indian Mutiny should be kept alive for each successive generation, not only on account of the deeds of unequalled heroism and superb endurance that glow through it all, but also because it is necessary for Englishmen and English boys and girls to remember that the India of 1857-68 differs in degree but not in kind from the India of to-day or of to-morrow. This generation is fortunate in the fact that Mr. Fitchett has arisen to tell the story in his own way,—a way that will appeal to the rising generation most vividly. This book is not, and does not pretend to be, a history of the Mutiny in the formal meaning of that term. The full history of that extraordinary uprising of the native army against the English remains to be written : "The Great Mutiny, as yet, has found neither its final historian, nor its sufficient poet" ; and "it remains without any finally con- vincing analysis of its causes." But Mr. Fitchett has given us not only a book literally palpitating with the tragic wonders of those terrible days, but a work that weighs with careful scales the evidence with which the ultimate historian will have to deal. The book is, therefore, not only one that boys and girls must devour, but one that will be read with careful attention by those who are fascinated by the intricate historicalproblems involved. The author, for instance, quite convinces us that Mr. Justin McCarthy's theory of "a national and religious war" as an explanation of the Mutiny is unsupported by the facts. Mr. Fitchett seems to us to sum up the causes of the Mutiny very truly and very neatly :— "We trod, in a word, with heavy-footed British clumsiness on the historic superstitions, the ancient habitudes of the Sepoys, and so provoked them to revolt. But the dour British character, which is at the root of British clumsiness, in the end overbore the revolt." Tactful treatment of natives in relation to their territorial and national environment was, then, one lesson we had to learn from the Mutiny, and to some extent we have learnt it. Another lesson, that of the danger of unpreparedness, and of guileless or slothful trust—the unpreparedness and the trust that lie at the root of all that was most terrible in the Mutiny—we have cer- tainly not learnt. We had it presented to us again in the Boer War, and in all probability we shall have to learn it a third time in the Far East, or in our relations with Germany. In a book where so much is good it is difficult to choose for special praise any particular portion, but nevertheless we think we may specially notice the chapter (5) that tells the story of the "Murder Ghaut" at Cavrnpore. That fearful tale, unequalled for horror, one must think, in the history of the world, is told with a vigour and a self- restraint that are most admirable. "To write this story," says Mr. Fitchett, "is a distress, to read it must be well- nigh an anguish. Yet we may well endure to know what our countrymen and countrywomen have suffered. Their sufferings are part of the price at which a great empire has been built." The author's self-restraint is well shown by his refusal to acquit the English of blame for having compelled certain high- caste Brahmins involved in the massacre "to clean up, under the whip, a few square inches of the blood-stained floor" before their due execution. This punishment in kind was, we suppose, "an in- humanity unworthy of the English name," but it had a certain grim appropriateness that seems to fit the reader's cry for vengeance.
Fitchett does not give us his personal opinion as to Hodson's act in shooting the two sons and the grandson of the ex-King of Delhi. We believe that act to have been, if one may judge calmly of an act that crowned a desperate and superb adventure, absolutely unjustifiable. It is true that Hodson refused, before they sur- rendered, to promise them their lives, and it is true that their crimes were such that they had forfeited the right to mercy. But nevertheless when they surrendered they surrendered from the
midst of a vast force; they knew that the King's life had been 8P5red—it is true that Hodson, under orders, promised this—and they had every reason to believe that the same mercy would be meted out to them. But Hodson weeks before had vowed to destroy the house of Timonr, and therefore the act was premeditated.
or our own part, we think the defiling of the Brahmins at Cavalnore a more justifiable act. Space will not let us deal
farther with this fascinating book ; we wish all books intended for popular reading were as wholesome and as vivid. It has only one point in common with the average literary provender that is supplied nowadays for schoolboys,—a far too plentiful supply of notes of exclamation. We mention this simply that Mr. Fitchett may remove some of these irritating forms of punctuation in his next edition.
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