ILLINOIS. 



INDIA. 



369 



The expenses of the war in the State in 1861 

 m-iv nearly five million dollars, of which the 

 United States Government would refund about 

 $3,400,000, besides the tax of August, 1861, 

 which w;is assumed by the State, and which 

 would amount to about $1,700,000. 



Late in the year, in accordance with a vote 

 of the Legislature, an election was held for del- 

 egates to a convention to revise the Constitu- 

 tion ; 75 members were elected, of whom 55 

 were democrats and 20 republicans. The con- 

 vention did not commence its session till Janu- 

 ary, 1862, and continued in session nearly three 

 months. 



Illinois has made gigantic strides in material 

 progress within the past ten years. With the 

 exception of Ohio, she has more miles of rail- 

 road actually in operation than any other State 

 in the Union, and another decade will proba- 

 bly enable her to surpass even that State, on 

 whose heels she now treads closely. The num- 

 ber of miles completed and in progress in Illi- 

 nois, January 1, 1862, was 3,849 ; the number 

 of miles open for traffic was 3,024 ; the cost of 

 the roads now constructed, with their equip- 

 ments, &c., was $113,591,014. Of these rail- 

 roads 2,770 miles have been constructed since 

 1852. By means of these railroads she is able 

 to bring her vast grain crops, for the culture of 

 which her broad acres of prairie are so admi- 

 rably adapted, into market with great facility. 

 The amount of this crop is marvellous. The 

 deliveries of grain at Chicago in 1861 were 

 33,214,294 bushels, being three-fifths of the 

 whole amount exported to Europe under the 

 extraordinary demand of that year. When we 

 consider that for large portions of the crop 

 St. Louis, Cairo, and Cincinnati are more con- 

 venient markets than Chicago, and take into 

 account also the immense export down the Mis- 

 sissippi in the winter of 1860-61, and the large 

 quantity required to supply the home consump- 

 tion of 1,700,000 people, some idea can be 

 formed of the productiveness of the State. 



Abundant, however, as is the product of grain, 

 it has been discovered of late that in the south- 

 ern portion of the State, at least, other crops 

 can be raised with greater profit and more uni- 

 form success. The culture of the sorghum, both 

 for fodder and for the production of syrup and 

 sugar, has been constantly on the increase for 

 several years, and the supply of Louisiana 

 sugar, which has been largely consumed in the 

 West, having been cut off by the war, a greatly 

 increased production of the sorghum followed. 



The culture of cotton, long practised on a 

 small scale in Southern Illinois, was greatly 

 stimulated last year, and will be still more 

 the present year, by the high price at which 

 that great staple is held, in consequence of the 

 war. It has been ascertained that the Tennes- 

 see cotton, or, better, that procured from China 

 above the 35th parallel, can be cultivated suc- 

 cessfully anywhere below 40 N. latitude in Il- 

 linois, and will yield an average crop of 300 to 

 500 Ibs. to the acre. Before 1840 it was culti- 

 24 



vated on almost every farm in Southern Illi- 

 nois for home consumption, but the low price 

 of cotton goods, and the demand for other pro- 

 ducts, led to the neglect of the cotton crop. 

 Many thousand acres have now been planted 

 with it, and should the season prove favorable, 

 the cotton crop of Illinois, in 1862, will prob- 

 ably be of considerable value. 



INDIA AND FARTHER INDIA. Of the 

 events of 1861, in these remote countries, there 

 are but few which particularly interest our 

 readers. The intrigues of Russia with Dost 

 Mohammed Khan, one of the most formidable 

 of the princes of Tnrkistan, were manifested at 

 the beginning of the year, in the refusal of that 

 prince to meet Lord Canning, the Governor- 

 General of India, during his progress " through 

 Northern India. The reason assigned by Dost 

 Mohammed for his absence, was a deceptive 

 one, and the fact gave some uneasiness to the 

 British authorities. 



The autumn of 1860 and the winter of 1860-61 

 were marked by a terrible famine prevailing 

 over extensive districts of India, in consequence 

 of the absence of the usual rains in the preced- 

 ing summer. The famine made terrible ravages 

 in Delhi and other districts, and many thou- 

 sands perished from starvation. Extraordinary 

 efforts were made for their relief, and a sub- 

 scription of $500,000 was made for supplying 

 their wants, in England. 



The Fifth European Regiment at Dinapore, 

 previously under the East India Company's 

 government, was incorporated with the Brit- 

 ish army of India, on the assumption of direct 

 sway over India by the British Government. 

 Dissatisfied with the amalgamation, which asso- 

 ciated them with the faithful native regiments, 

 they mutinied ; tlie Governor-General caused 

 the ringleaders of the mutiny to be seized, tried 

 by court-martial, and hanged, and the regiment 

 to lose its name, and its companies to be dis- 

 tributed among the other regiments. This 

 prompt action saved the country from what 

 appeared at first to threaten serious trouble. 



The cultivation of indigo, though profitable 

 to the large proprietors, is not so to the ryots 

 or tenants of the lands, especially on the rich 

 lands of Bengal, which yield better crops of 

 cotton or other articles, with less severe labor. 

 The indigo crop must be planted at a particular 

 time, (in the inundated lands immediately on 

 the recession of the waters, and on the dry land 

 three or four days after the first rains,) and if 

 not sown at that precise time the crop is a 

 failure. The labor is very severe and the re- 

 turns small ; the English proprietors had been 

 accustomed to use the most oppressive meas- 

 ures towards the ryots, imprisoning them, and 

 subjecting them to cruel punishments for the 

 slightest neglect or delay in sowing the indigo, 

 and reducing them and their descendants to 

 peonage for the small advances made to them. 

 Contracts with them had often had conditions 

 of peonage interpolated in them, unknown to 

 the ryots, and these had been enforced by im- 



