Morning journal and courier., 1886-01-13
An Ambassador,s Sad Plight.

An Ambassador's Sad Plight.
 l From the London Daily Telegraph
 A surprising, if not unique, phenomenon is visible in Paris. It is not the skin of sea serpent or an indisputably white elephant in the Jardin des Plantes, nor even genuine
 wild man caught in the barely explored for ests of South America. The curiosity which has suddenly appeared in the French capital is an Ambassador who has lost h1s status by no fault of his own, but by the decision of Lord Dufferin and the vigorous operations of Gen. Prendergast, and who, besides, is left without 8 sou in his pocket because King Theebaw has emigrated from Mandalay to Ranipet, in the Madras Presidency. Thus it required the con- joint action of three dis tinguished personages to produce the unex- ampled state to which this extraordinary en- voy has been reduced. What is he and how did his misfortunes arise? Some months ago the Burmese King, or the Woons, or the French consul, perhaps all com bined, thought fit to equip certain person, who is called Tam Glet Woon Doank Min-a name, style, and title long enough and mysterious enough for any plenipotentiary-an send him to France empowered to negotiate or sign treaty of commerce between the illustrious theebaw and the great republic It was part of the ingenious game now being played in the region known as Indo-C China, whereof some fruits-rather bitter to the taste-are daily being gathered by the famous Tonquin committee. The Tam Glet-we cannot re- peat all his appellations-took with him to Paris a suite of g engaging Burmese, and he was and still is, with his unhappy following, one of the Parisian attractions. At first he was great success. Ministers did business with him; he discussed the stipuIatons and clauses of treaty which was to glorify NJ. Haas, enthrone French influence on the Up- per Irrawaddy, and rebound to the honor of Tam Glet Woon Doank Min. This prodigi- ous denomination actually appeared at the foot of the famous treaty, and had all gone well in the Eastern Hemisphere, he might even have been rewarded with the Legion of Honor. Why nots Did he not cooperate, poor man, with the imaginative politicians who are inspired with magnificent ideas, and are all agog to found empires beyond the seas to be filled by French functionaries, and have all their commerce carried on by English, Americans and Germans? If he had, or rather if Theebaw and M. Haas had been successful, when they set about the good | work of undermining the British in the East, and astonishing the Chinese on their own coasts, there could be no sound reason-un- less the numberless applicants for crosses and ribbons objectsd-why the roll of Napoleon's celebrated legion of worthies should not have been enriched by the high-sounding, if some what reeondite, name of Tam Glet Woon Doank Min. Unhappily, ''The English did not prove amiable; the Viceroy, who did not concur with NJ. Haas, dispatched 'fPren-
 dergast," as the dethroned King familiarly called him, to capture Mandalay, and the Am bassador, with his g appendices, found him self, not merely deprived of the Legion of Honor, but out in the cold.
 This, we say, is 8 most astonishing anom- ally in the history of civilization, and one not devoid of humor, in which there is often | spice of pain. The worst of it is that Doank Min cannot now tell precisely what he is Has he ceased to be an Ambassadors The l French Foreign Office has told him that he | cannot release himself from his official char acter; and Lord Lyons is said to have bland l ly replied to his supplication that having no l official information, he could not take upon | himself to say what might be the exact posi- | tion of the perplexed envay nor tell him whether he should stay or go. It is pit
 l eous esss. The authority whence he drew I his full powers is now empty of powers al | together, and the instrument, st least from l an Ambassadorial point of view, literally stands on nothing. Then King Theebaw has | forgotten his envoy; and we'll he might eea- | ing that so tiresome change mas taken place, to the music of big guns, in his own surroundings. He remembered his jewels. | but not the jewel of emissary he sent to l work with the French. The Burman in Paris has not yet heard, except from barba- rian newspapers, Shat the monarch he left behind him has been carried to 8 place in the country made famous by Olive and other obstinate gentlemen. Do the powers con ferred by King when absolute and Hse
 injure when he is under restraint2 Are they like postboys who are always posthoys, when there were ony3 or like clerks, who al,- til the other day we're always cierksl IT ia only in 8 fictitious fashion that +t,ne envoy can put these questions to Himself or to oth- CTS They belong to tsse class of illusions. AS an envoy lie rray put them. as a man he
 knows well they are idle He is painfully conscious that, although everybody is polite, and that some ask him to dinner, he may be substantial Burmese entity, with a beautiful name, if little prolonged, but | that as an Ambassador he is nonentity; as Plenipoteptiary, he is not merely void, but leas than nothing. Probably no active minded and ingenious Burman or other ap pointed official ever fell into such condi- tlop-~so real as regards himself so unreal In respect of what he was before the ire pressible ''Prendergast' entered the Palace of Mandalay and sent Theebaw by steamer co Madras. No wonder 8 gentleman from the East who goes about double, a living contradiction in terms and in fact, should excite the curiosity of Q Parisian journalist, should be asked to dinner, and interviewed wherever he can be found. Is it in his late ministerial or his present equivocal eharac ter that he crams interviswers and diners out wi th his Oriental views? Judging from some of the wonderful things put into his mouth, We should think that he spoke in both capacities at once; but great allowance must be made for one who has been over thrown by a blow struck 12, 900 or 14,o00 miles away. Nothing" it Is said, 'scan act but where it is. :" In the case of the | Tam G5et Woon, however, something, which is not where he is, has acted rudely upon him; he lives to refute the famous postulate, and longs every day to learn off
 oially that, by the operation of remote causes, he is now nowhere.
 Athlophoros completely cured me of rheu-
 matism and I have recommended it to friend ciIfferino from neuraIoia I think #