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542 General History of Europe mutinied at Delhi and massacred the English inhabitants of the city ; the inhabitants of Lucknow rose against the foreigners, and at Cawnpore a thousand British men, women, and children were cruelly massacred. Many of the sepoys remained loyal, however, and the English armies were able to put down the mutiny and to punish the rebels as cruelly as the mutineers had treated the people of Cawnpore. 979. India under the British Parliament. After the suppres- sion of the sepoy rebellion the Parliament of Great Britain revolu- tionized the government of India. The administration of the peninsula was finally taken entirely out of the hands of the East India Company, which had directed it for more than two hundred and fifty years, and vested in the British sovereign (1858), to be exercised under parliamentary control. On January i, 1877, Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India amid an illustrious gath- ering of Indian princes and British officials. King George V, as Emperor of India, now rules over about three hundred millions of Indian subjects inhabiting a domain embracing 1,773,000 square miles. The Secretary of State for India is responsible for Indian affairs, while the actual administration in India is conducted by a viceroy appointed by the British government. 980. Progress in India. The construction of railway lines has been pushed forward with great rapidity, so that the vast interior might be quickly reached by troops and an outlet opened for its crops of cotton, rice, wheat, indigo, and tobacco. Cotton mills are rising by the tombs of ancient kings, cities are increasing rapidly in population, and the foreign trade by sea has multiplied twenty- fold in the past seventy years. About eight hundred newspapers, printed in twenty-two languages, including Burmese, Sanskrit, and Persian, are published ; educational institutions have been provided for nearly five million students. As a result, an industrial and edu- cational revolution has been taking place in India. A Nationalist party has developed which demands home rule or even independ- ence for India. The British government had a careful report drawn up on the whole matter and consented that Indian representatives be added to the councils of the Secretary for India and the Viceroy.