Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1898-04-28
DACOITS OF BURMA.
THOUGH SOMEWHAT CHANGED THEY
 STILL EXIST TO THUNDER.

Che Dacoits-A Sample Case of Che rnes.
 noieney of the Police Officers.
 Burma is one of the countries that are changing very fast, and one of the things that have changed in Burma is the daeoit The sportive gentlemen de. sorlbed by Rudyard Kipling and others who crucified villagers wholesale and filled old ladies with kerosene were hourishing in full vigor less than ten years ago, but they already belong ss completely 10 the past as Dick Turpin and his colleagues in England. No doubt fresh war or any event seriously sbak. ing the British power or reputation might produve a reerudeAcenee of the old disease, putin the meantime the daooits have entirely changed their habits h. stead of living together'in bands in the Jungle they are scattered through sepa- rate villages in the guisa af peaceful eultigatoes During the day each man attends to his paddy fields just like hm Helghbars, a1d it js eniy at night tha& they sasa6 syetAeg for the dispatch af tl1elE atoaa ispg goftaat and lucrative busi, aess.
 Rae5it5 az aaaasa F Iaw i8 simpiy fobhary eou5Gittad b3 hand CT a7a men or more. and t is iH nartal4t aaiy beeaaza e taa lsaHaaasis E strong natural pfa1eflal= F @Hla 55 atd f.l5 g#ea5 6ifl aai,iaa Uh f4 tls Hafieaa4 character nlaee5 53 @ q his aatestian + 4as5 aazaa aae4ad taat, Bar taa e5Hs a 1f3aa sa#o an3 much lca5 sst5aa than fr6ia aiid tils government hei9 extremely short hand ct. @ immense amount of various kinda # &ofk falls uBGH each single English o6cIaI. Hfnee it ia whellF impossible fof him to exercise any cI8sa e detailed supervision ever any particular part q his district. This Of itself renders tha detection of criminals a dIGlealt mat ter. Wien Ii dapeit8 were tn tho woods it was simply Q case Of turning out co casienalIy ta hunt them down. At pres ent the ras..r must necessarily bs Ieft chiefly iH to bands Of natiYea
 Now, tbe nasives are for 5ho mesi aart hoGes. a9d tolerablg law abiding. and they have no sympathy whatever with man wl'o goes aac0lting, but the aaooit soea afmed, and the auBinepeas Gnd c9waIaiea of tha BuEman in tha presence Of arms. moro particularly of firearms, nro fomething almost inoo1n. prehensibia 10 th8 westera mind. 1t ia quite sufficient for paTty of half q dozen men to have a gun among them--effeot. 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 a crowd. No one will interfere with them. i'll more than one instance bold robbers have made successful at- tacks when armed merely with theiS dabs-the dagger which every Burman carries-and with pretended rife made of a stick. with which they frightened off all opposition.
 But perhaps tho strange workings of the native character are best exhibited in the following case, which occurred quite recently. The facts are vouched for by an English officer: There was a band of five men who were in the habit of practioing daeoity occasionally. Three of them eame from the same village not common thing, as it makes detec. tion easier--the fourth from another village, and, as for the fifth, no man knows whence he came, for reasons that will appear. One night these five men. armed with nothing but their knives and spears, which are used for fishing tu lower Burma, entered a house, tied up the owner and began plundering. Now, this house was in large village. containing not only a population of some 400, but 9 police post with Ia native policemen armed with sniders Ths alarm was given and the house surrounded, and then there was pause The robbers continued their work undis- turbed within. The villagers, some 200 or 300 ablebedied men, all more or less armed, sat around on the dam which surrounds and protects every house on the delta, looked down on the house and discussed the question. The police stand rather nearer the house and fired shots into it through the bamboo walls, hurt. ing no one.
 One solitary policeman after time volunteered to advance. He erept up quite close to the house and fired in through an opening in the wall. Then he vent farther and actually put his head and part of his body through the nole, apparently to see what execution he had done. One of the robbers prompt ly pinned him to the ground with a fish spear and killed him. By this time they had completed their preparations; so they sallied forth, each man with his pack of plunder on his back. Though the house was surrounded, they appear aa La..o haa ro diainnlAz in making