St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1897-05-29
CALLOuS oRlEHTALS.
People Who Seem Cutie Insensibie ts
Pain-Humnu Targets for a Dollar.


Pain-Humau Targets for a Dollar.
One of the devices of donkey boys and
camel drivers in Cairo, Palestine and
other points in the east much affected
by tourists, is to try to extract larger
gifts of money by pretending to be i'll,
or to have sore feet, or to have been Bit
ten by dogs. The shrewd sons Of the
desert have learned that western tray-
elers are more sensitive to pain than
themselves, and they are not slow to
make use of the fact.
Thus in Cairo there has sprung up,
within the last few years, horrible
crop of cripples, sometimes actually
self-mutilated by the hacking off Of
hands and in other ghastly ways, who
get money by holding their stumps to
view until the sickened tourists are
glad to pay to be rid of the sight OF
them. And the donkey boy with the
sore toe is as common as the peddler OF
modern Antiquities
AS a matter of fact, an Arab scarcely
feels pain at all. A short time ago a
tourist, himself unseen, happened to see
a native whose foot had been cut open.
The man was examining it with curious
interest, but no evidence of suffering;
he had never before had an opportunity
to see the inside of it. When he saw
the tourist, however, he changed face
at once, and began bowling piteously
and begging for backshish.
An English surgeon in the Egyptian
army who used to operate il the days
before anaesthetics, says that opera
tions which, when performed upon a
European, were SO painful that they
were almost as dangerous as the
wounds, were borne by the natives al
most with Indifference. 1t was GUS
tomary to give the patient cigar to
smoke during the operation, which he
would watch with the keenest interest.
Away in lower Egypt, far from any
town, an English sportsman was once
out shooting, when, by mischance, be
happened TO fill an old natives leg with
bird shot. There was tremendous ont
cry at once. The sportsman, after ex-
amining the wounds and finding that
they were not serious, though apPar-
emily SO painful, gave the sufferer dol
lar by way Of salve. OF course he was
at once denounced for the smallness of
his gift, but he had lived in Egypt long
enough to pay no heed to this.
Shortly afterward he was surprised
to see a large deputation of natives ap-
preaching. They were villagers leading
up to him select assortment of rela-
tives, too old to work, but grinning
from ear to ear in pleasurable antici-
patton of a supply of spending money
as they announced their willingness 10
be shot at for dollar head.
This oriental calIousness is also paine
fully manifest in the treatment Of ami
mails. The donkey boys favorite trick
for making his poor brute quicken its
gait is to prod it with a sharp stick in
a raw spot-already often utilized for
the same purpose--and twist the in
strument of torture in the wound with
a boring motion. Indifferent to pain
themselves, they no more realize that a
dumb beast suffers than does school
boy who pulls off the legs and wings
of fly as he would the petals of
flower. lie isn't consciously cruel; it
simply doesn't occur to him that it
hurts. When a Bedouin has had his
hand reduced to mangled wreck by
the bite of d surly camel, he simply
plunges it in a soaring bath of hot oil,
and eats his supper as usual. How can
you expect such man to be mercifu]
to the camel?
Even life does not seem to be thing
of much account to an oriental. 1t is
said that on one occasion, when num-
ber of Siamese rebels were taken out
to be shot by a squad of soldiers, those
who were waiting their turn, when they
saw the grotesque contortions of their
comrades as the volley of bullets rid
died their bodies, shouted with delight
and were fairly convulsed with laugh
ter The thing struck them merely as a
fine showl
What wonder that such beings tor
ture captives just for the fun of it. As
everybody knows, they even torture
themselves in the most hideous man.
ner, simply for the sake Of being stared
at and talked about. j believe that the
inner motive of an Indian fal1er in hang
ing himself up by hooks passed through
the flesh or sitting for days on stool
bristling with sharp spikes, is essential
~ the same as that of the boy who at
nedapleasing notoriety and collected
q great assortment of tops, pennies and
marbles from his mates, by exhibiting
his sore toe at SO much a look. But
the boy, after all, doesn't like to be
hurt, while these Asiatics seem almost
to enjoy it. They can't have much more
feeling than jellyfish for themselves
or others.-Philadelphia Press.
Much I'm Name.
Western Man Cooking at sailing
craft t)-What holds the sail out
sfr>aioht9