Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1876-05-05

| THE RELIGIOUS DEyOTIONs OF BELUCHIus JAM
MISUNDERSTANDING UPON ONE
LEG FOR sIxTY-sEyEN YEARs-PITCHING
BABIES TO THE SACRED CRoCoDILEs-RxER-
cIsGs UPON TIE SACRED SWING.
Max Adeler in the Philadelphia Bulletin.
You may have noticed in the papers that
Beluchius Jamsuttacheheebhoy was mortal
" wounded the other day by the Nawab of
Dada in Ahmeddnugger. And thus another
one OF earths great and noble ones passes
away. knew him well refer to Belu-
chius Jamsuttaeheheebhoy of course. lie
was IN some respects very remarkable man.
even for Hindoo. | remember that in his
earliest years his mind assumed somewhat of
OF devotional cast and in the first impulse
OF his religious teryOr he undertook to give
his feelings expression by standing upon one
leg Tor slxty-seyen years. After he had held
that other leg in the air for about thirty
two months, however, his views underwent
change, and he concluded to put it down
1t seems but yesterday that he came to me
and said that after turning the matter over
IN ms mind 1t struck him as somewhat ab-
surd Tor man to hope to secure eternal
felicity hy holding up his toes, and that he
was now convinced that if he hoped to get
IN the path Of duty he should have to engage
IN the work ofpitching babies to the sacred
crocodiles.
l never knew any one to fire his whole
soul to work as Beluchius did TO this.
10 see that sanity llindoo take baby and
chuck 1t at hungry crocodile was to have
your respect for mankind increased. He
was an unusually conscientious man and he
never caused the animals any unnecessary
annoyance. When one of them would prop
It's Jaws open Beluchius would take any odd
twin that he had in his collection and heave
them into the animals mouth with pre-
clslon that was little less than marvellous.
lie acquired dexterity by practicing with
rag baby on a stuffed alligator, and it was
a comfort to see the good man going through
his exercise with that scrupulous fidelity
which always distinguished him.
Bat he wearied OF it at last. He told me
that his soul crayed something which would
develop his higher powers, and 30 he Joined
the Thugs. Here the same lofty devotion to
duty characterized his conduct He had
way OF garroting a man which brought all
the instincts of his better nature into play.
and his friends never could sufficiently al
ed Of the various members of his family. 1t
was not 50 much that he Drained both of his
parents with single fling of the boomerang,
although that was spoken Of at the time as
something little above the average. and it
was not that lie choked off his grandmother
by slipping the clothes-lines over her head
and tightening It by fixing his grandfather
to the other end and dropping him out of the
window. But when he pinned his aunt to the
cellar door with the toasting fork and drove
the cook through tie root by putting blast
ing powder in the stove. people SAID that
the man : services were entitled to some kind
OF recognition over and above what he de-
served for putting his little brother and sis
ters IN the well and then dropping grind
stones on them.
There was something about the man that
warmed the heart toward him. After he
resigned from the Thugs, he found relief for
his Ycarnlng after truth by exercising upon
the sacred swing. Often have | seen him
run the iron hook through the small Of his
back OF through the calf Of his leg, and 20
hummlns round and round, scolding at the
man at the crank for turning 50 slow and
then he would come down and run the car
IA th4--NA maui ONEL tNt Ill- VI sfND OF
+co common people and scrunch them up.
and 20 home feeling all the time that
he hadn't done anythingnear his duty,
and wasn't half good enough to associate
with thoroughly moral people. But
It j. all over now. The alligators may
@ hungry now as far as he Is concern
ed. Who will 90 prowling around picking
up stray babies tor them now? Who will
butcher >uperhous people in the hearty fash
ion he used TO be 50 fond Of? Who will
make slip-nooses of clothes-lines suspend old
people ont of the windows and shoot un-
necessary cooks out through the shingles
and up toward the stars Nobody about
Ahmedinugger, any way One town can't
very well grow more than one such man as
he. And that his simple, and modest and un-
pretending life Is ended, | offer him this little
testimonial of NY esteem, and sigh to think
what man he weuld have been to our little
community where the coroner might have
followed him up and held about fifteen iu-
quests day, and where he would have given
the undertaking business an impulse that
would have put it right upon its feet, and
enabled some of US to get up corners IN
cofiins