Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1885-03-08
Ell NIAHDrs RIGHT HAND.
The Career in New York of the False
Prophets Chief Aid.
J0AR S1oint0n's Pdper,


One night of May, II years ago. in a
dingy back room Of an old brick house in
Wooster street, met young French
man who even then had played u part
which doubtless had prepared him for the
extraordinary adventure in which he is
now engaged. He was amid a group Of
his friends, and had just reached this city
as a refugee. de had been an actor in the
Paris revolt Of March, 1871; he had es-
capped the massacre that followed the
suppression of the Commune; he rad af-
terWard been arrested and condemned to
death; his punishment had been changed
TO that of Punishment 10 the penal colony
Of New Caledonia in the Pacific; he had
there, with few companions, got up
daring plan of escape; they had carried
out that plan amid dangers as great as
ever were encountered; and in May Of
1874 the little party of fugitIyes had ar
rived in San Francisco, from which Mr..
Olivier Pain FASTENED to New York,
when he spent few days prior to his
departure for England as place of safe
".
When here he looked about 80 years of
age. and was tall, 1.-the and handsome, pos
sessed OF both the Vivacity and the graVi-
tv ola expel einced wording of Paris. He
hat done duty on the press as an assa1l-
ant of the Empire; he had done service in
the field during the k'rancO-German war,
and subsequently during the revolt Of
Paris; he had suffered the hardships of
French convict life, and was then in full
fiigEt from one kind of peril to another;
but, Withal, he demeansd himself as
though his resources had not yet been
tested.
Well, according to the cable dispatches,
this young Frenchman, Mr.. Olivier Pain,
has for the past year been the military
adviser of the False Prophet" who is
now leading his wild hOrdes Of Arabian
spearmen against the British invaders OF
Egypt and the Soudan; and it is this same
Frenchman who led the storming party
that captured KhartOum and put an end
to the career Of Gen. Gordon. 1t is a long
distance from Paris to New Caledonia,
and from Wooster street to the Soudan,
but Mr. Pain has measured it; it IS queer
change from convict and fugitive to his
present rank in the host of the Faithful"
but he has undergone it. As far back as
last year the dispatches told of mystic
TiOIs Frenchman who was reported to be
in the AraO camp, and who was high IN
the confidence Of FL Mahdi; but it was
not till last January that we were as
sured of MIR. PANS being in command of
10, 900 of the MahdPs troops at Metemneh,
now we have the news of his victory at
KhartOum, under which the British Gov
eminent is Keeling.
Mr.. Pain had varied experience after
leaving New York. He went to London,
and next to Geneva, where be was con-
cerned in several newspaper ventures.
When the TurkO- Russian war broke out
he entered the Turkish service, was cap
tured by the Russians, and condemned to
death as a spy; but the sentence was not
executed, and he got out of prison in
time to return to France and to Partisan
journalism under the amnesty of 1880. 1t
was as a correspondent that he penetrated
to the camp of FL Mahdi, where his
knowledge Of the art of war brought him
to the front. The English papers have
given notice that he Will be hanged as soon
as Lord Wolseley gets hold of him.