ABSTRACT
We have elsewhere mentioned that two companies of the 53d Regiment sailed from this port [Liverpool] on Saturday, for Calcutta; but there was one circumstance connected with that sailing, most painful in its details, which we have deemed it right to bring thus particularly under the notice of the public, in the hope that it may meet the eyes and bespeak the sympathy of the commanding officer of that gallant corps. It appears that about a fortnight since, one of the privates who left for Calcutta on Saturday obtained liberty from the commanding officer at Manchester for himself and his wife, a fine young woman, only 19 years of age, to whom he has been married only about a year and a half, to pay a short visit to their friends in Ireland, previous to leaving the country. The private returned to Manchester at the expiration of his furlough, but the wife remained in Ireland a few days longer, not expecting the detachment to sail until the end of the present month or the beginning of the next. On Wednesday last, however, she received a letter from her husband, stating, that they were under orders to leave Liverpool for their destination on Saturday, and that it was absolutely necessary for her to be in Manchester on Friday, in order that, as she was one of the women selected to go to Calcutta, there might be no difficulty in getting her passed with the detachment by the commanding officer. She immediately proceeded to Dublin, where she arrived on Thursday, but to her inexpressible regret, found that the Liverpool steamer had just left the quay, and that she must remain for the night. She was, therefore, unable to reach Liverpool before Saturday morning; and on coming here, she found the detachment in the act of shipping on board the Nith, at the Price’s Dock, and learned from her husband, that as she was not in Manchester the previous day, the wife of one of the other privates had been selected in her stead by the commanding officer. A most heartrending scene succeeded. The parties burst into floods of tears; embraced each other several times, in the belief that the period of their last parting had arrived; and the soldier, a fine, athletic young fellow, took his child, an infant about five months old, repeatedly out of its mother’s arms, and kissed it with all the fervour of an attached and most affectionate father. After this affecting interview, and one that was witnessed with lively feelings of sympathy by a crowd of spectators on the quay, had lasted for some time, the afflicted mother, in a paroxysm of grief and despair, ran with the infant in her arms to the railway station in Lime-street, with the view of going to Manchester and entreating the commanding officer to allow her to proceed with the detachment. She had been informed that the Nith, after having taken the companies on board, would lie in the river until yesterday, and she hoped to be able to return in time for the sailing, and with the joyful intelligence that she had achieved her object. On reaching the station, however, she discovered what she had been too much grieved to think of before, that she was all but penniless, and wholly unable to pay her fare. She was, therefore, compelled to return to the dock, where she arrived just in time to see the vessel sailing out of the harbour for Calcutta. Hope now forsook her, and the poignant anguish she felt may be much more easily conceived than described. Inspector Bibby found her on the Prince’s-pierhead soon after, and, ascertaining that she was without money, friends, or even acquaintances in the town, he, much to his credit, took her to his house, provided her with food, and is interesting himself to get her on to Manchester, to see whether the commanding officer will allow her to proceed to Calcutta with the next detachment.
