It was founded without the knowledge, privity, or consent of the conductor of the European journal, by the head pressman, of his establishment, who was a Brahmin. The editor of this native print, which was lithographed in the Oordoo language, was the moonshee of the English press at Meerut. He was well skilled in English, and his chief employment was translating the native correspondence. Having constant access to the desks of the compositors, this press moonshee acquired a knowledge of every item of news furnished by European as well as native correspondents, and of this knowledge he failed not to avail himself. This, however, was but a small evil, comparatively. Unknown to the conductor of the Meerut paper, a much greater evil arose from the publication of the native print. Availing himself of such sources of information, its editor seized the views of his employer--views intended only for European eyes, and gave his own version of them to his readers in the Hindoostanee language; and, what was equally mischievous, he published quantities of matter which the conductor of the Meerut paper thought proper to suppress after it was set up in type. These were the morsels in which the native editor took most delight. A single instance will suffice. The following appeared in the leading columns of the _Jam-i-Jumsheed_, the facts having been kept out of the columns of the Meerut paper, at the instance of the friends of the gentleman who was guilty of the indiscretion:-
An act of retributive justice has just been committed by the worthy magistrate of this district. It was supposed that an escaped convict from the jail was secreted in a village about four miles distant from this cantonment. In the dead of the night, the magistrate, at the head of a large body of police, visited the village, aroused the inhabitants from their slumbers, and demanded the culprit. The villagers denied any knowledge of him. The magistrate, with characteristic kindness and consideration, gave them half-an-hour to make up their minds. At the expiration of that time, as the culprit was not produced, he set fire to the village. In those flames, which illuminated the country for miles round, thirteen lives were sacrificed; namely, those of three men, four women, and six children. One of the unfortunate women was in labour at the time. Some malicious natives in the neighbourhood of Meerut give out that the Sahib has been notoriously mad for several years past. Let us hope, however, that the Lieutenant-Governor will not heed such insinuations, but after complimenting the magistrate on his vigour and his zeal, appoint him to the first judgeship that may become vacant. No less than six hundred persons are, by this fire, rendered homeless beggars. But what of that? Must justice be obstructed?