Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. I, Part I: History of Gujarat c16.5

c16.5

The native press, which had been merely disloyal, now assumed an attitude of decided hostility. Every paper contained the most exaggerated accounts of the massacre of Europeans in the North-West Provinces, and absurd rumours were circulated of the approach of a combined Russian and Persian army, which, it was said, had reached Attok and would shortly invade Hindustán. It is much to be regretted that the measures which were found necessary in 1880 for the suppression of seditious publications were not enforced in 1857. Had this been done much evil would have been averted. The native mind would not have become familiar with the spectacle of the British Government held up to the execration and contempt of its subjects and the vilest motives attributed to every public measure.