Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/422

 348

NOTES AND QUERIES, no s. vm. NOV. 2, 1907.

HODSON OF THE INDIAN MUTINY. In an

interesting article in The, Daily Telegraph of 20 September it is said that " Hodson shot two sons of the King of Delhi." On refer- ring to two well-known works I find they differ from each other. ' Haydn's Dic- tionary of Dates,' 24th ed., p. 684, says :

"Assault of Delhi, the King captured, 21 Sept.; his son and grandson slain by Col. Hodson, 22 Sept."

In ' Selections from the Letters, Des- patches, and other State Papers preserved in the Military Department of the Govern- ment of India, 1857-58,' edited by G. W. Forrest, vol. i., ' Delhi,' p. 378 (from Major- General A. Wiison, commanding the Delhi Field Force, to the Adjutant - General of the Army, dated Delhi, 22 Sept., 1857), I read :

" Three of the Shahzadas who are known to have taken a prominent part in the atrocities attending the insurrection have been this day captured by Capt. Hodson and shot on the spot." The Shahzadas were Mirza Moghal and Mirza Khair Sultan, sons of the King ; and Mirza Abulbakr, grandson of the? King.

In the same volume, p. 480, Lieut. Nor- man's narrative states :

" On the following day two of the King's sons and a grandson, all deeply implicated in the atroci- ties committed in May, were also captured throiigh Lieut. Hodson's exertions. They were shot, and their bodies exposed for twenty-four hours in front of the Kotwali.

The same article in The, Daily Telegraph says that " Hodson shot them then and there with his own carbine." This cannot be correct, for officers did not carry carbines. In a letter to the editor of The Daily Tele- graph Capt. Charles J. Griffiths, late 61st Regiment, writing from the United Service Club on 20 September, states :

" They were not shot with a carbine, but with a Colt's revolver of six chambers. My regiment, the old 61st, was at the time quartered at the Lahore Gate of the city. The three bodies were exposed, naked, on a stone slab, in front of the Kotwali, and there I saw them, remembering most distinctly two small bullet-wounds over each of the hearts."

After reading the above letter, I con- sulted two more works on the same subject, and found they did not agree with Capt. Griffiths or The Daily Telegraph corre- spondent, as the following extracts will show :

"Then, either thinking that his sowars might not obey him, or rejoicing in the work of carnage, he took a carbine from one of his troopers, and deliberately, with his own hand, shot to death his unarmed and unresisting captives." ' A History of the Sepoy War in India, 1857-1858,' by John William Kaye, vol. iii. pp. 650-51.

"Then, taking a carbine from the hands of a. trooper, he shot dead his three unresisting captives." 'History of the Indian Mutiny,' by Col. G. B. Malleson, C.S.I., vol. ii. p. 80.

Col. Malleson and Mr. Forrest also differ as to the place where the three were shot. Forrest's ' Selections,' vol. i. ' Delhi,' p. 369 (demi-official from W. Mxiir to J. W. Sherer,. dated Agra, 27 Sept., 1857), states: "To- day the Princes Mirza Moghal, Abul- bakr,. and Khair Sultan were brought in by Hodson from Humayon's tomb, and shot at the Delhi Gate." But in Malleson's- ' History,' vol. ii. p. 79, is the following : " He shoots them when within a mile of Delhi."

Perhaps some reader can kindly oblige with a correct account.

ALFRED SYDNEY LEWIS.

Library, Constitutional Club, W.C.

[The difficulty of deciding between conflicting, accounts of the Indian Mutiny is notorious. The official dispatches are most trustworthy. Officers often write from memory some years afterwards,, and their records cannot be relied upon in con- sequence.]

TYRONE POWER, THE AMERICAN ACTOR. I am anxious to discover when this popular American comedian was in England, and where he acted. As he was lost in the wreck of the S.S. President in 1841, it must have been previous to that date. He is stated to have appeared with great success at Bristol and Norwich some time in the thirties. The lines attributed to him which were written in pencil on the walls of the ruined church of Petersburg, Virginia, in 1840,. commencing,

Thou art crumbling to the dust, old pile,

Thou art hastening to thy fall, appeared in ' N. & Q.' some years since.

FREDERICK T. HIBGAME. [Many particulars of Power's appearances in England will be found in the notice of him in the ' D.N.B.']

"Cur HIS STICK " = " HOOKED IT." So- far as I had ever thought of this expression at all, I had assumed its origin to be nautical. The subjoined extract from a letter I have received from a parson relative in Devon- shire seems, however, worthy of a place in ' N. & Q.' Perhaps some one may be able to supply the information asked for.

"Last night during conversation the phrase ' cut his stick and went ' was used quite casually. Our host asked us if we knew the origin of the expression. We did not. So he related a story of how in his younger days he lived in a farm-house at Market Draytoii (Shropshire?) along with a farmer, his wife, children, and two men. These men were hired, according to custom, for a year at