GREAT LOSS OF LIFE IN INDIA. [From the "Sunday Times", June 3o.]

New Zealander, Volume 6, Issue 478, 13 November 1850, Page 3

GREAT LOSS OF LIFE IN INDIA. [From the " Sunday Times", June 30.]

We have received Indian news in anticipation of the Overland Mail, The dates are — Bombay, May 25; Malta, June 22. Our reports state thnt the calamity ot Bencrnes, weie upwards of IQOo persons lost their lives by the explosion of magazine bouts loaded with gunpowder forms the great topic of the present mail. A fleet of 30 bouts, containing ordnance stores, including no , less than 8000 barrels of gunpowder, had reached Banana, on their way to the Upper Provinces. Here they anchored lute in the nftcrnonn of the Ist of May, off the principal landing pluce, and close to the hotel in, the town. The place, it iccmi, isutuully occupied by vessels of this tort. They were under charge of a warrant officer, who seems to have quitted his charge on arriving at Benares. About ten o'clock a burst of flame was seen for a instant to proceed ironi the bouts followed by a terrific explosion he.ml or felt ten miles off. which spread destruction and dismay avcrywhcic, the bouts themselves were of course, destroyed ; Jiou-' set were shaken to their foundation, and doirsand windows blown in. Four hundred and twenty human beings weie killed on the spot, and the list of killed and wounded includes no fewer than 1,200. Arrangements were being made to have the magnzines of gunpowder, liithei to too frequently situated in the centre of great towns or thickly peopled neighbours hoods removed to lituulious less pregnant with danger. Colonel Grant had resigned the appointment of adjuttmt-General and comiuander-in-chief of the Bengal army, and has been succeeded by Colonel Tucker, a young and able, and emminently popular officer. Trade continues dull, and the season may be considered ai closed. Veins of copper and of lead had been discovered 200 miles north of Calcutta and o'O or 70 fiom the Ganges, Measures were in progress for (ffecling communication by railwny and telegraph between CalmUu and the North West Province*. A di fully epidemic, rcEfimbling the plague, had broke out in the hill districts of Guihwul and Kumonn. The Governor-General and Commander in Chief remain m Siniluh ; the health of the fonnur is very unfavourably lcpoitcd on. The Bengal Times, a new and cheap daily paper, made its appearance on the Ist June— The whole of the Maulman Press is stated to be extinct— four juurn* ala having died within the sume number of months. The Englishman, June i Mi, stateg that Sir Charles Napier had sent in this resigation — the cause for such a step ii yet a secret; a tighter control than he expected is conjuciured to be the reason. Captain Hicks, originally appointed a Deputy Commusiorur in the Funjaub, hus been found by the boaid of Administration untqunl to the office and hat been reduced to the rank of auassUtunt Commissioner The name of Colonel Pew Ins, it is suid, been erased from the Bengal nrti»y list, as also those ol Captain Fag nn and Dr. Butler foi their banking defalcations. The G(;vernor«Genernl has permitted Moolr&j to bathe in the llocghly, and to tuke exercise in the Fort under proper .suiveilliU.ce.