of a considerable force, but his
expedition was not attended with success. Dost Mohamed used every
exertion to prevent the peaceful occupation of the province by the
English, his hope being that they would abandon it as too troublesome
and expensive, and that he might take possession of it on their
retirement. Early in June one of the most terrible calamities which
had ever occurred in British India took place at Benares. A number of
magazine boats were in the river, which by some means ignited and
blew up, spreading destruction far and wide. One thousand persons were
killed, many of them blown to pieces, and great numbers besides were
injured. Rumours reached England of the dissatisfaction expressed by
Sir Charles Napier with many things connected with the native armies
in India. The extravagance and dissipation of the officers, and the
constitution generally of the army of the Bengal Presidency, were named
as the subjects of his displeasure.

IRELAND.

The condition of this unhappy country during the year 1850 was only a
little less miserable than it had been in what were emphatically called
the "famine years." Great distress prevailed, aggravated by bad laws,
and the general social state and spirit of the people. The
moral condition of the country was still worse than its material
circumstances. Scarcely had the year opened, when a series of the most
atrocious murders that ever disgraced a country were perpetrated. A
gentleman, steward to a person of large landed property in the county
Tipperary, was shot near his own dwelling by cowardly assassins, who
fired upon him from behind a hedge. Two brothers, in the same county,
disputed about land; the younger clove the skull of the elder with
the spade which he held in working. A poor emaciated man, in the same
blood-stained county, while in a state of starvation pulled a turnip in
a turnipfield, and was caught by the owner in the act of satisfying his
hunger upon it; the inhuman wretch shot the miserable delinquent on the
spot.

These atrocities were but samples of the barbarous deeds which took
place over many districts in Ireland throughout the year. The criminals
were not always poor men; farmers, farmers' sons, and even men of this
class possessing what might be called affluence, either committed, or
caused others to commit, the savage acts which disgraced their country
and shocked all civilized nations. Sometimes the murders were effected
by men who had no