The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-06-25
THE DaooIr OF BURMAH.
Curious Methods of Robbers Who Work
 in Blocks of Five,
Trom the St, James, Gazette.)


 Wrom the St. James Gazette)
 Burmah is one of the countries that are changing very fast, and one of the things that has changed in Burmah is the dacoit, Instead of living together in bands in the jungle, Dacots are scattered through separate villages in the guise of peaceful cultivators. Dur ing. the day each man attends to his paddy fields just like his neighbors, and 1t is only at night that they meet together for the dispatch of their more important and lucrative business, Da- cotty, as defined by law, is simply rob bery committed by band of five men or more, and it is important only be- cause of the Burman's strong natural propensity toward it, and the great diculties which his national character places in the way of it's detection,
 Perhaps the strange workings of the native character are best exhibited in the following case, which occurred re- gently. The facts are vouched for by an English official
 There was band of five men who were in the habit of practising dacoity occasionally, Three of them came from the same village-not 8 common thing, as it makes deteGtion easier; the fourth from another village, and as for the ffth, no man now knows where he came from, for reasons that will ap- pear One night these five men, armed with nothing beyond their knives and spears, which are used for fishing in Lower Burmah, entered a house, tied up the owner and began plundering. Now this house was in a large village containing not only population of some fourteen hundred, but a police post, With fifteen native policemen armed with Sniders. The alarm was given, and the house surrounded, and then there was a pause. The robbers continued their work undisturbed within; the villagers-some two or three hundred able bodied men, all more or less armed-sat around on the dam which surrounds and protects ev- cry village in the delta, looked down on the house and discussed the question; the police stood rather nearer the house and fired shots into it through the bamboo walls, hurting no one One solitary policeman. after a time, volunteered to advance. He crept up quite close to the house, and fired in through an opening in the wall; then he went further, and actually put his head and part of his body through the hole apparently to see what execution he had done One of the robbers promptly pinned him to the ground with fish spear and killed him.
 By this time they had completed their preparations, so they sallied forth, each man with his pack of plum der on his back Though the house was surrounded, they appear to have had no difficulty in making their way through; only the police fired after them with buckshot and hit three of them in the back, not seriously wound ing them. But one of the band had the misfortune to stumble and fall h. stantly the crowd rushed upon him, and before he could rise literally hacked him to pieces, and so effectively that not the slightest clue to his identi- ty remained. He was absolutely de- stroyed; no one knows even what was his nationality. The other four got away.
 Now comes the sequel which is, if possible, still more extraordinary. Some days after, a man in neighbor ing village informed the thugyi or head man, that two of the villagers, whom he named, had been concerned in the late dacoity. The thugyi hal them arrested promptly and they were carried to headquarters for identifica- tion The man whose house had been plundered was confronted with crowd of men from the informer's Vil- laee and told to pick. The first ne picked was the informer; then he pointed out the two men accused. All three were examined and found to have buckshot still sticking in their backs. and all three were hanged-for dacoity in which a man is killed is murder. The remaining robber was never traced