VICTORIA. 



745 



land by the distinguished war correspondent 

 William H. Russell, who was perhaps the first of 

 the modern special war correspondents. It was at 

 this time, too, that Florence Nightingale became 

 famous. 



The siege of Sebastopol lasted nearly a year. 

 Emperor Nicholas died March 2, 1855, and Lord 

 Raglan June 28. On Aug. 16 occurred the battle 

 of Tchernaya. The allies attacked the Redan and 

 Malakoff forts without success, June 18; on Sept. 

 8 the French carried the Malakotf by storm; see- 

 ing that the fall of Sebastopol was inevitable, the 

 Russians evacuated it, having first set it on fire. 

 By the treaty Kars, which had been taken by the 

 Russians, was restored to Turkey, and Russia re- 

 ceived back the places the allies had taken. The 

 Black Sea was made neutral, the Danube was 

 thrown open to navigation, the integrity of the 

 Ottoman Empire was guaranteed, and the Sultan 

 issued an edict for improving the condition of his 

 Christian subjects. The loss of England by the 

 war was about 24,000 men, of whom about 20,000 

 died of. disease. The French and Russian losses 

 were much greater. The national debt was in- 

 creased by about 41,000,000. 



The Indian Mutiny. There was trouble in 

 1843 with the people of Scinde, and some hostilities ' 

 which ended in the subjugation and annexation of 

 the three principalities comprising that province. 

 The rulers, called ameers, were pensioned. Sir 

 Charles Xapier is reported to have said of the trans- 

 action : " We have no right to seize Scinde, yet we 

 shall do so, and a very advantageous, useful, and 

 humane piece of rascality it will be." When Scinde 

 became a British province the Sepoys lost the 

 extra allowances they had had for service in the 

 enemy's country, and therefore mutinied. There 

 were other mutinies among the Sepoy troops upon 

 the annexation of the Punjab in 1849, after the 

 wars with the Sikhs, and again in 1850 there was 

 a mutiny at Govindgar, which was soon quelled. 



The great Indian Mutiny broke out in 1857. It 

 was probably due to the alarm with which the 

 natives saw the rapid progress of the British 

 power, but the immediate occasion appears to have 

 been the notion that the cartridges, which at that 

 time the soldiers had to prepare by biting off the 

 ends, were made in paper greased with the fat of 

 cows and hogs. Such use of the fat of the cow 

 would be sacrilege to the Hindu, while the hog 

 \\as an abomination to the Mohammedan, and 

 to touch it a degradation. The first show of mu- 

 tiny was made at Barrackpore, where the Sepoys 

 refused to bite the ends of their cartridges, though 

 they had been assured that none of the grease 

 they objected to had been used in them. There 

 were other similar demonstrations. The mutineers 

 were tried, there were some executions, and at 

 Meerut sentence to hard labor for ten years was 

 given to others. The following day they were 

 rescued by their comrades, who fired upon the 

 officers and killed some of the European inhab- 

 itants. Then they marched to Delhi and an- 

 nounced their intention to restore the aged King 

 of Delhi to the throne. Bahador Shah, the hered- 

 itary ruler, a descendant of Timour, was about 

 eighty years of age and was living in the palace 

 at Delhi, a pensioner of the East India Company. 

 The siege of Delhi, the awful massacre at Cawn- 

 pore by the orders of Nana Sahib, and the relief 

 of Lucknow by Sir Colin Campbell followed, and 

 in December, 1858, the rebellion was at an end. 

 Among the English officers who were distinguished 

 in the suppression of the rebellion were Sir John 

 and Sir Henry Lawrence, Sir Henry Havelock, and 

 Sir James Outram. One result of the mutiny was 

 the transference of the administration from the 



East India Company (called by the natives ' John 

 ( 'itmpany ") to the Crown. Lord Canning, \\lm wa< 

 Governor General during the rebellion, was the 

 first Viceroy of India. 



The Indian Famine. One of the most terrible 

 events of the reign was the great Indian famine 

 that began in 1890 not the first, but the most 

 widespread and disastrous. It is stated that there 

 were 13 famines from 1802 to 1854, with an e~ti 

 mated loss of 5,000,000 lives; ami from 1860 to 

 1879 there were 16 famines, with a loss of more 

 than 12,000,000 lives. This increase is not due to 

 the fact of decreased production so much as to the. 

 draining of the resources of the country by taxi--. 

 The Government maintains a famine insurance, 

 but from time to time the fund is diverted for 

 military defense on the frontiers, and it has been 

 used in the construction of railroads, which, by 

 bringing in foreign products, discourage native in- 

 dustries and add to the poverty of the people. The 

 irrigation system begun after the famine of 1877 

 was not completed, and in the drought of 1896 all 

 crops failed. In June, 1897, more than 4,o(K).(M:i 

 persons were receiving relief. Large sums were 

 subscribed in Great Britain, the United States, 

 France, Germany, and other countries; the chari- 

 table contributions from all sources amounted to 

 nearly 1,750,000. After the drought came the 

 bubonic plague, which broke out in Bombay and 

 spread to other places. The deaths in the Bombay 

 presidency rose to 4.300 a week in October. 1898. 



Trouble with Japan. In 1862 a British sub- 

 ject was murdered in Japan on a road the free- 

 dom of which was granted to Englisnmen by 

 treat} 7 ; the murder was committed by some of the 

 adherents of Prince Satsuma. The Japanese Gov- 

 ernment was called upon for an indemnity of 

 100,000, which was paid; and demand was made 

 on Satsuma for 25,000 and punishment of the 

 murderers: he did not respond, and an English 

 fleet under Admiral Kiiper went to his capital, 

 Kagosima, to demand reparation. The forts fired 

 upon him, and he bombarded the town, destroying 

 the greater part of it, after which Satsuma yielded. 



Insurrections in New Zealand. The Maoris 

 have from time to time risen against British rule. 

 An insurrection in 1843 '47 was not so serious 

 as one that took place in Lord Palmerston's second 

 administration. The Maoris resented the intrusion 

 of the colonists on lands they regarded as their 

 own, and they fought surprisingly well. In Au- 

 gust, 1864, they were subdued, and submitted. 

 There were other outbreaks in 1868 and 1869. 



The Rebellion in Jamaica. The slaves in 

 Jamaica had been freed in 1834, and were after- 

 ward apprenticed as laborers. This system was 

 abolished in 1836, as it was shown to be little less 

 oppressive than slavery. In 1839 a motion to sus- 

 pend the Constitution of the island for five years 

 in consequence of continual disagreements between 

 the Assembly and the home Government came so 

 near to failure that it led to the resignation of 

 the Melbourne ministry, though, in consequence 

 of the Bedchamber Plot (noticed on page 737. this 

 article), they returned to power directly after, 

 and a milder bill was passed. In 1865 an insurrec- 

 tion broke out in the island which was so quickly 

 suppressed that it would scarcely have raised a 

 ripple in England but for the severity with which 

 the participants and those suspected of participa- 

 tion had been punished after the rebellion was 

 over. Edward John Kyro was then Governor of 

 the island. The insurrection, which was little 

 more than a series of rtots, was brought about by 

 an attempt to evict some negroes from land which 

 they had improved under a promise that if they 

 would pay the arrears of quit rent due the Crown 



