the spreading of the signal was followed by the Increased excitement of the people." The first signs of the approaching trouble were displayed at the great military station of Barrackpur, 16 m. from Calcutta, in January 1857. The minds of the native regiments quartered there were maddened by rumours of the defilement which the new Minié cartridges would entail upon them, and incendiary fires broke out in the lines. The trouble was allayed by the tact of General Hearsey, who reported the incident to the Indian government on the 24th of January. A fortnight later he wrote, as the result of his inquiries, "We have at Barrackpur been dwelling upon a mine ready for explosion." At Berhampur, 100 m. to the north, on the 27th of February, the 19th Bengal infantry refused on parade to take their percussion caps, on the ground that to bite the new cartridges would defile them. The absence of any European troops made it impossible to deal with this act of mutiny on the spot. The defaulting regiment was marched down to Barrackpur for punishment. On the 29th of March, two days before its arrival, a sepoy named Manghal Pandi, from whom the mutineers afterwards came to be spoken of as "Pandies," drunk with bhang and enthusiasm, attempted to provoke a mutiny in the 34th Bengal infantry, and shot the adjutant, but Hearsey's personal courage suppressed the danger. Two days later the 19th were publicly disbanded, but no further punishment was attempted. This was partly due to Lord Canning's personal inclination to temper justice with mercy, but partly also to the fact that there was no adequate European force at hand to execute a severer sentence. Bengal had been recklessly depleted of white troops, and there was only one European regiment between Calcutta and Dinapur, a distance of 400 m. Canning sent at once for more British troops from Burma. Meantime new accounts of refusals to use even the old cartridges came from distant parts of Hindostan, from Umballa under the very eyes of Anson, the commander-in-chief, and from Lucknow, the capital of the newly annexed kingdom of Oudh. Lord Canning, the governor-general, who had at first hoped that he had only to deal with isolated cases of disaffection, at last recognized that the plague was epidemic, and that only stern measures could stay it. But before he could take the necessary steps, there reached Calcutta the news of the outbreak at Meerut and the capture of Delhi. The outbreak at Meerut.