England’s Latest “Little War.”

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 440, 12 April 1890, Page 3

England’s Latest “Little War.”

Our latest “ little war,” the Lushai campaign, to whieh telegrams have referred, has opened in a very inauspicious fashion, our troops suffering severely from sickness. A correspondent of the Rangoon Times, mentioning the invaliding of Captain Woollcombe and Lieutenant Pratt, of ths King’s Own Scottish Borderers, speaks of the foice as “ melting away.” On January 2nd, he states tbat of 400 Borderers at Kan only 187 were fit for duty. On the same day sixty-two men of the Madras Infantry were in the hospital. It is not the first time, it may be added, that the English Government have had to send an armed force against the same people. Most people have heard of the Lushai expedition of 1871-2, undertaken to avenge a series of raids, in one of which an English gid— Mary Winchester—was carried off. It was completely successful. The Lushais surrendered Mary Winchester and a hundred native captives. Miss Winchester, an English contemporary adds, was none the worse for her captivity, except that she had learned to smoke a pipe. As will be gathered from the foregoing remarks, the Lushais are very objectionable; but at the same time they are an extremely interesting people. Some curious information about them is given by a writer in the St. James’s Gazette. Apart from a weakness for head-hunting and strong drink, the writer tells us, the Lushai is as good a type of the noble savage as could be found anywhere. He is well favored, intelligent, hospitable to strangers, and brave; though the Lushai’s ideal of courage is somewhat different from ours. When British troops first invaded his country, he shouted to the Indian sepoys not to stay like cowards in the open, but to come into the jungles and fight like men. The Lushai believes in a Supreme Being, and in a future state. Mighty hunters, who have killed elephants, or otherwise distinguished them selves, and mighty warriors who have taken many heads, go when they die to the happy hunting fields beyond the big river Piel. Common folk and all women, save girls who die before they are weaned, go to the village of dead people. Both in the happy hunting fields and in the village of the dead, the Lushai lives and dies three times; but after his third death his spirit dissolves into mist and sinks to the ground for ever. One of their most extraordinary customs, as be relates, is that of men and women, to all outward appearances, changing their sex. A young Lushai woman, who is dissatisfied with her state of life, puts on man’s attire, smokes a pipe like a man, goes out hunting—lives, in fact, just as the men live, even going through the form of marriage, with a girl for bride. The Chin are the Eastern Lushais with whom our annexation of upner Burma has brought us in close contact. They have a very firm belief that human sacrifices are requisite for the success 'of their agricultural operations and have been in the habit of drawing their supplies of victim? from the Burmans of the Cbindiwi river. This of course is a proceeding which the British Government could not approve and one object of the. campaign is to put a atop to it. When the present operations are carried to a successful issue—as no doubt they will be, in spite of the unpropitio us commencement—it is probable that steps will be taken by establishing postsand opening up roads to bring the country more under oontrol, and render future raids impossible.

herself deserted. She returned to her relations, and they protected her from the importunities of her worthless husband, who however, extorted as much money as he could obtain from them. Then the escapade at Ocean street was made public, and Mrs Manson’s friends’ suspicions were aroused in another direction. They began to suspect him of bigamy. Determined, if possible, to tree his unfortunate daughter from the clutches of M’Leod, at all costs, Mr Ewing employed detectives, regardless of expense, to find out something about M’Leod’s early life. He was followed to America, to England, to France, and back again to America. Those who had known him, or were likely to know him were advertised for, and several of his numerous aliases having been ascertained, wives were advertised for and asked to commnnicate with the detectives if their husbands had unaccountably disappeared. Two years had passed, and Mr Ewing began to despair of bringing home the charge of bigamy to M’Leod, but the detectives were certain they were on the right ecent. Wherever they had traced M’Leod he had been accompanied by a woman who had passed as his wife. Still they could get no definite proof, and evenjthe detectives began to lose hope. And now comes the strangest part of this strange ® n d sordid story. M’Leod’s bigamous pitcher had gone once too often to the well, and women, on whom he seems to have battened all his life, were at last to prove his iiwnfall . e In the month of May, 1889, a young lady named Miss E. Cameron, became acquainted with a man in the city of St. Louis, Missouri, L.S.A. He was affable, and he smiled foolishly and often. The lady fell in love, and they were married. Six months of married life were passed, and the husband began to treat his wife brutally. Then he deserted her. She was heart-broken and sick at his treachery and villainy, and rightly enough she wished the scoundrel to suffer for his misdeeds. Chance, or Providence, fulfilled her wishes. Carelessly turning over a newspaper one day she came across an advertisement, which struck her. It was an appeal to any wife who had been deserted by B man to information to—— ■ and then followed a description of the man. Advertisements giving descriptions of people can necessarily convey but a very faint idea of the person described; but somehow Miss Cameron’s instinct told her that the man sought for in the advertisement was her husband. She communicated with the address, and as a result made a journey of several hundred miles. At the end of it she was shown a photograph, and she at once recognised it as the man who had married her siz months ago. The detectives set to work, and rightly or wrongly they have arrested a man, named John McLeod. They think that he is the man who married Mrs Manson and Mies Cameron, and is wanted for the Ocean Street oharge, It remains to be seen whether they are right. ' Meanwhile Miss Cameron is in Sydney, waiting to prosecute, and it is said that, if the man arrested proves to be the man wanted, j considerable light on the * l a wholesale bigamist and scoundrel. The detectives say there is no doubt that the man captured is the man wanted for the assault on the servant girl in Ocean Street injured 6 *'* w^om Ter y severely a man about 55 years of age, aitnough he does not look nearly so old, and nis open good looking countenance proves the immortal bard's assertion that “ a man may emile, and smile and be a villain.”