To those who have thought
most deeply of the perils of the English empire in India this has
always seemed the monster one. It was thought to have been guarded
against by the strong ties of mercenary interest that bound the army
to the state, and there was, probably, but one class of feelings that
would have been strong enough to have broken these ties,--those,
namely, of religious sympathy or prejudice. The overt ground of the
general mutiny was offence to caste feelings, given by the
introduction into the army of certain cartridges said to have been
prepared with hog's lard and cow's fat. The men must bite off the ends
of these cartridges; so the Mahometans are defiled by the unclean
animal, and the Hindoos by the contact of the dead cow. Of course the
cartridges are _not_ prepared as stated, and they form the mere
handle for designing men to work with. They are, I believe, equally
innocent of lard and fat; but that a general dread of being
Christianized has by some means or other been created is without
doubt, though there is still much that is mysterious in the process by
which it has been instilled into the Sepoy mind, and I question if the
government itself has any accurate information on the subject.
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