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NATIVE INVALIDING Rules.

served out in the first instance, reeking with all kinds of abominable grease stuff that was supplied to the Arsenal by contractors, and very much to blame are Government and all the authorities whose duty it was to have had things better ordered. These cartridges are made the rallying-point on the part of the disaffected; but there must be other causes for the wide-spread feeling of disaffection existing in the minds of the Sepoys, but what these causes are no one has been able yet to ascertain from themselves, and we are left to our own surmises on the subject. To my mind, the one great cause of complaint is the difficulty there now is for a man, Native officer or Sepoy, getting on the Pension Establishment, and there is no chance whatever of his being granted a pension as long as he can put one foot before another; so a commanding officer of a regiment, do what he will, cannot get rid of useless, worn-out men, who are sent back to him by the invaliding committees to become a source of discontent in the corps. Norman, our Assistant Adjutant-General, who is a very smart young officer, told me of an instance within his knowledge of every man who was sent before the invaliding committee of a certain regiment having been rejected, except one, and that poor fellow died before his papers could be made out for pension. At Bombay, where the Army has always been in a more contented state than here, the invaliding rules are quite different, and men are admitted to pensions there-if pronounced unfit by the regimental authorities- · who would be kept on the strength of the Army for years longer in Bengal. Another thing, I firmly believe, is that the Army is well aware of the secondary position their officers are made to hold, and of the little power they have and can exercise; and during the late régime, particularly of Lord Dalhousie, no pains were spared by him to show the paramount nature of his power at the expense of the military, and his Council, it strikes me, were walking much in the same direction. The well-being of the Army, in fact, and its officers, was a secondary consideration, and the Sepoys knew it; and the authority, particularly of commanding officers, has become much weakened in consequence. But I must quit the subjectthough I could write a great deal more about it. In the end I have no doubt things will terminate satisfactorily, but we may have one or two awkward incidents yet to dispose of.

* Now General Sir Henry W. Norman, G.C.B., G.C.M.G.

BAD NEWS FROM DELHI-DEPARTURE OF ANSON. II

(Diary) 6th May.-Talk with His Excellency about the indiscipline of the Army, and a necessity of a revision of the Native invaliding rules.

8th May.-Employed most of the day with the trial of the Umballa Jemadar, 5th Native Infantry, which I got the Chief to dispose of by the evening.

12th May.-Bad news in from Delhi this morning, which Chester, on his way from the Chief's, came to tell me of. Mutineers from Meerut have seized the bridge at Delhi; and, I fear, the men of the 3rd who were condemned to ten years' imprisonment with hard labour were under a Native guard, and escaped. Over at Chester's to take a walk, but stopped at the Chief's. A letter came from Waterfield, of 10th; fighting at Meerut, and it seems that the sentence on men of the 3rd had been carried out.

13th May.-An anxious time-no dâk in from Umballa. The 75th were to have marched yesterday evening, and to go on straight to Moohurckpore, about half-way to Umballa. Over at the Chief's and had a long talk with him; he appears to rather pooh-pooh the thing. We shall see. 14th May.-Bad news in-the Chief and Chester off in the middle of the day. A meeting at Mr Petersen's* to arrange for the defence of Simla. From the meeting I went to see Mrs Wyld, where I found F. The Goorkha corps at Jutogh said to be disaffected; and I wanted F. to go down to Umballa, and Mrs Wyld also. But no; she (Mrs Wyld) came and slept with us at Peskett's, where there were a great number collected.

15th May.-Got home soon after sunrise. An excellent letter from Maisey† giving an account of the Meerut and Delhi disasters. Everything apparently getting on as well as can be expected. Hear a rumour of the Goorkha corps (Nusseree battalion) in open mutiny, and refusing to march. Ride towards Boileaugungegreat alarm-many cutting off. At Peskett's garden, and then to the Rana's place.

16th May.-Home at sunrise. All quiet. Two Sepoys came to the house soon after I got there-very civil, and declared

A large shop near the Simla Bank.

+ Deputy Judge-Advocate at Umballa.

The Rana Sansar Sain of Kooyntal, a hill Raja. See Appendix A.

they never intended to alarm any of the Sahib-Logue.' The scoundrels! Determine after due consideration to go and sleep at the Rana's again, and to start at moonrise in the early morning for Joonug, his country-seat, some twelve miles off; arrange accordingly, send everything off, and go and dine at about four at General Gowan's, May Day Hill. Our old party and Mrs Daly came and joined us.

17th May.-Off with difficulty about 4 A.M.-dreadful scrimmage; reach Joonug about eight o'clock. Such a scene of

confusion!

Colonel KEITH YOUNG to Colonel H. B. HENDERSON, London.

JOONUG, 17th May.

I write a line to tell you that there is not a word of truth in the reported 'Simla Massacre.' F. and I, and the dear Babas, are as well as you could wish, enjoying ourselves at this place, some sixteen miles from Simla. We came out here this morning-'fled,' you may say for fear of the mutineering Nusseree battalion at Jutogh rising against us and resorting to deeds of violence. We are here under the protection of a friendly Raja, and shall probably remain two or three days longer, and then return to Simla or go on to one of the European hill cantonments as circumstances may render desirable. I haven't the least fear myself of the Goorkhas having recourse to violence under any possible contingencies, but the late dreadful excesses at Meerut and Delhi have made everybody over-anxious, and had we remained at Simla, F. would have been about the only lady there; and as all the rest of the Head-Quarter officers had left the day before yesterday, there was no use of my staying on in an official point of view. Any day, however, the Chief may send for me to go down and join him.

It is a very nice, pretty country where we are now located, and except that our accommodation is rather confined, we have nothing to complain of. Our party consists of Colonel and Mrs Greathed, and the wife of the Umballa Brigadier, Mrs Hallifax; and in the adjacent houses and tents there must be some forty ladies and gentlemen, and nearly double the number of children.

You will see by the papers much later and fuller accounts of what has been going on than I can give you. My own impression