The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-26
Interesting "reminiscences of
the Biographer by His
Subject.
HERO OF THE BLACK THRONES.
Hs Says Dinah Shadd Is Fiction, but
tho Incarnation Is Very
Largely Fact.

yarns OF barrack-room life IN her Majesty s
East Indian service than did even the
biographer of the world-famed Private
Mulvaney.
For, truth to tell, Private Mulvaney him
self is at hand, ready to tell whoever has
the ear for them the self-same tales he
told to Kipling, and Kipling to the world
ready to tell even more than Kipling has
told. His real name is William McManus.
He lives down on Nebraska street and has
been a resident of San Francisco for more
years than his biographer has been famous
by picturing to the world the adventures
of Privates Mulvaney, Ortheris and
Learoyd, of the "Black Ty rones."
In fact there was no such regiment as
the Tyrones in the East Indian service,
but the Eighty-sixth Regiment was the
Royal County Downs, and it is easily iden-
tilted as the one of which Kipling writes
in his masterful tales. And the selection
of the name Black Tyrones only thinly
wells the real identity of Private Null
vaney's regiment to those who know, for
Tyrone is county adjacent to County
Down, and the only county regiment from
that part of Ireland in the East Indian
service, and the only regiment in the serv-
ice that gloried in Private Mulvaney.
William McManus started for San Fran
cisco few months after the "Reincarna-
ton of Krishna Mulvaney" actually &C.
Cured at Delhi. He has lived here ever
since and is well known to the few East
Indian veterans on the coast. On one 18th of
July he was prominent figure in the pro-
cession of the Mcmahon Guards, being the
only man in line who had served full time
in India and won three most valued
medals. These medals he wore in the
march with the guards and, together with
his papers," they formed his sole fortune
when he landed here from the good ship
Aphrodite of Liverpool, on which he worked
his passage from Rangoon.
Rudyard Kipling has generously be-
slowed upon the hero of the Incarnation
of Krishna Mulvaney' a considerable
quantity of rupees and a massive gold
chain that the priest in the temple gave
him as hush money for deserving his
palanquin without exposing his identity as
a mere human being-and one not very
sober at that. The fortune and some other
fourishes that Kipling has given the mar
rative make it good book story, but the
facts of the case are about as
interesting, and nearly the same as
Kipling relates with these few ex-
ceptious: That Mulvaney was at
that time no longer in the service; that
he had saved good deal of money from
his work as driver, with which he went
off on tear as relief from his hard
work under water; that the palanquin he
rode to the temple in was not the one he
obtained from Dearsley to prevent him
SW1ndllnO the natives rfh
that, as Kipling says elsewhere, is quite
another story-and that he came back from
the temple and his drunken ride in the
palanquin penniless instead of rich and
glad enough to escape with q whole skin
from the wrath of the priests and the pos
sible judgment of the real Krishna.
Yes, it was William McManus who rode
in that palanquin; it was William Nc
Manus who gave Kipling the sound adj
vice not to name places, for a man is
thracked by place." which Kipling care
fully followed in his tales; it was Will
liam McManus who courted Dinah
Shadd-but he did not marry her; it was
he of whom Kiplng wrote in Private
Learoyd's Story: .sMulvaney-grizzled
tender and very wise Ulysses, sweltering
on the earthwork of a Central India line
judge if l have forgotten old days in the
Trap"
Them was the days 1 was bossin' a
gang of native tracklayers on the Govern
ment railroad" says William McManus.
"Well, remem Der Kipling in those days
plucky, inquisitive little fellow in the
Civil Service, who l first met at Gavin
pore, where he passed his bottle around
among US privates, and then got us to tell
him all the yarns of the barrack-room. He
had little stubby black mustache and
wore spectacles. He stopped at my bunga-
low on the railroad all one day and drank
out of my bottle and helped me out on a
square meal. And 1 was mighty glad of
the chance to be civil to him.
"My friend, Private Mulvaney, was one
OF the sentries Cat the Inexpressibles' balD
because he was the tallest man in the regi-
ment," Kipling has written. That is Will
liam McManus-and not only the tallest,
but the straightest, the best chested, the
biggest listed, the neatest and trimmest
and the kindest hearted man in the regi-
ment, as his biographer has variously and
veraciously characterized him.
"How in the world did you come to know
these thingsP" Kipling once asked of Pri-
waite Mulvaney in one of the tales of SOL
diers Three" And it was William Nc
Manus who answered.:
"Bekase I'm turned durin' the Ouane's
pleasure to lump av wood, lookin' out
straight forninst me, wild a-a-candle alb
Drum in my hand for you to pick your
cards out av."
And you need not read Kipling to know
that William McManus, the original
Private Mulvaney, was every inch a
soldier. To-day he is older than he was,
and none the better off for the oft repeated
sprees like the one that gave Kipling the
inspiration for the Reincarnation story.
But he is as straight and as slick as ever
he was, though his occupation is that of a
laborer..
Kipling came upon Mulvaney (Mc-
Manus) when he twas doing pack-drill" for
being dirty on parade" This astonished
Kipling, who says: 81 nearly fell into the
fort ditch with establishment and wrath,
for Mulvaney is the smartest man that
ever mounted guard, and would as soon