Semi=weekly graphic., 1897-01-02
NO. U
DACOITS OF BURMA.
THOUGH SOMEWHAT CHANGED rasv
 STILL EXIST TO THUNDER.


 ing and Do Not Often Capture One ss
 the Daeoits A Sample Case of the IsaaS4
 fcienoy of the Police officers.
 Burma is one of the countries that are changing very fast. and one of the things that have changed ill Burma ia the daeoit. The sportive gentlemen de. seribed by Rudyard Kipling and othsra who orueified villagers wholesale and filled old ladies with kerosene wore fiourishing in full vigor less than ton years ago, but they already belong ss completely ta tha nnst as Dick Tur1Nn and his colleagues in England. No doubt q fresh war or any event seriously shak- 1 ing the British power or reputation l might produce q reerudescence of the old disease, but in the meantime tho daooits have entirely changed their habits. In- stead of living together ill bands i'll he l jungle they are scattered through sepa- rate villages ill the guise of peaceful oultivators. During the day each man attends to his paddy fields just like his 1 neighbors. and it is only at night that they meet together for the dispatch of their more important and lucrative busi- ness.
 Daooity as defined ty law is simply robbery committed by band of five men or more, and it is important only because of the Burman's strong natural propensity toward 1t and the great diia. culties which his national charaot sr places in the way of his detection Es must always be remembered that, Bur- ma being in transition stage and much less settled than India and tlls government being extremely short hand- ed. an immense amount of various kinds of work falls upon each single English official. Hence it is wholly impossible for him to exercise any close or detailed supervision over any particular part of his district. This of itself renders tho detection of criminals q difficult mat ter. When the dacoits were in the woodA it was simply case of turning out oo- oasionally to hunt them down. At pret- ent the matter must necessarily be le3t chiefly i'll the hands of natives.
 Now, the natives are for the mo h part honest and tolerably law abiding, and they have no sympathy whatevoe with man who goes dacoiting, but ths dacoit goes armed, and the supineneM and cowardioe of the Burman in the presence of arms, more particularly nf firearms, are something ost income prehensible to the western mind. It ie quite sufficient for party of half dozen men to have gun among them--effect- i've or useless, loaded or empty, matters little, the mere show is enough--and they may go fearlessly to work in the midst of crowd. No one will interfere with them. In more than one instance bold robbers have made successful 6 / taoks when armed merely with their dabs-the dagger which every Burma8 carries--and with a pretended rife made of stick, with which they frightened off all opposition.
 But perhaps the strange workings of the native character are best exhibited ill the following case, which occurred quite recently. The facts are vouched for by an English officer: There was band of five men who were in the habit of practioing dacoity occasionally. Three of them came from the same village not common thing, as it makes detec~ ton easier--the fourth from another village, and, as for the fifth, no man knows whence he came, for reasons thas will appear. One night these five men, armed with nothing but their knives l and spears, which are used for fishing in lower Burma, entered house, tied up the owner and began plunderine. Now, this house was in q large village, containing not only population 1t some 1, 400. but a police post with 15 native policemen armed with sniderf. The alarm was given and the houss surrounded. and then there was a pause. The robbers continued their work undir- turbed within. The villagers, some 200 or 300 ablebodied men, all more or less armed, sat around on the dam whici surrounds and protects every house ol the delta, looked down on the house ani discussed tho question The police stood l rather nearer the house and fired shots l into it through the bamboo walls, hurt ing no one.
 One solitary policeman after tina volunteered to advance. He crept u1 quite close to the house and fired il through an opening in the wall. Then he went farther and actually put h.s head and part of his body through ths hole, apparently to see what execution he had done. One of the robbers prompts | ly pinned him to the ground with fisn \ spear and killed him. By this time they had completed their preparations; so 1 they sallied forth, each man with his pack of plunder on his back. Though | the house was surrounded, they appeer r to have had no difficulty in making their way through, only the police fired after them with buekshot and hit threa | of them in the back, not seriousl wounding them. But one of the band had the misfortune to stumble and fall. Instantly the crowd rushed upon him. and before he could rise literally hacked him to pieces, and so effectively that not the slightest olew to his identity remained. He was absolutely destroyed No one knows even what was his nsa- tionality. The other four got clear away. Public Opinion.
 4 Remarkable Freezing Mixture. A majority of readers know that I mixture of two parts of pounded ita
 and one part of common salt will reduce
 the temperature of anything inclosed so
 as to De wholly surrounded bjr I the the mix