Phillipsburg herald. [volume] (Phillipsburg, Kan.) 1882-1905, 1900-09-20
TORTURE FOR CHARITY.
naIays of south Africa who slash
themselves for the Benent
OF the wounded.

The Malays recently showed their
loyalty in their own peculiar way by
getting up strange sort of entertain
ment in aid of the fund for the sick
and wounded British soldiers, says q
correspondent of the London News
The Khalifa,' as the performance is
called, consists of exercises. and featS
with swords and other sharp instrU-
mentS, to the accompaniment of tam
BOURNE playing and various incanta-
tons. The individuals who perform
the tricks make a vigorous pretense of
infiicting upon themselves all sorts of
injuries. Apparently, they run the
most Imminent risk, but for some rea-
son or other the weapons, effective as
they undoubtedly are, seem powerlesS
to penetrate their bodies and limbs. It
appears that accidents do occur some
times. for during a representation of
a similar character in Cape Town re-
Gently a man severed an artery and
bled to death. An old member of the
cape police, with whom [ was conYerS-
ing on the subject, told me that he
once witnessed a private exhibition of
the kind somewhere out here, at which,
through a similar piece of misfortune,
one of the actors disemboweled him
self. All the same, when I told him
that the Cape Town papers had been
decrying the show and expressing the
hope that nothing of the kind would
be permitted to take place there again,
he said: ''What rot!" 1t was not the
first time, / believe, that 1.-THE Khalifa''
had been staged in Kimberley, but it
was, at all events, comparatively novel
to the public, and was matter of spe-
cial interest to our military visitors,
Sir Charles Parsons and other eff
GERS being patrons of the show. Iquote
some further details from the descrip-
ton given in the local journal:
''When the curtain rose it revealed
miniature representative of Malay
temple, around which were seated 20
performers, with the tambourines on
which to beat out weird accompani-
ments. The first item was by the
khalifa himself, Ishmael Kalem, and
consisted in sword exercises of a very
novel and rather startling kind With
| a heavy, keen-edged sword, which was
afterward handed around among the
spectators, the khalifa seemed to make
every effort to mutilate himself, in vain.
He tried chopping off his arms, but
to no purpose; he hacked at himself
in various ways, and finally, eXasper-
ated with i1l-suceess, tried to cut his
throat, but it was no use, it would not
cut, and so, wearied out, he had to give
up. Next there was the item called
the Tampboo, by Baredin Mora and
Fatah DOley. Armed with great steel
skewers, with iron heads, Mora and
Doley cut and dug in a very energetic
manner, but their skins appeared in
toughness and power of resistance to
put the rhinoceros to shame. Skewers
were no more effective than the sword,
and let the chant go never so fast. and
the tambourines beat never so loud, the
impervious bodies resisted every self
inflicted attempt. After this Mamie
Kamed and Obdulah Jardin gave an ex-
hibition with long-pointed knives,
which they tried to drive through their
heads and pare their arms with. In
the Tampboo by Taslam, Ishmael,
Mamie and Majabo Selo the risk of in
jury appeared immine nt, the four per-
formers dancing round and f1ourishing
the dangerous weapons with vigor and
seeming recklessness. Strangest of all
was the performance of Mamie and Tas-
lin. who had long steel pins stuck
right through their faces, ears and nos
tril, without drawing any blood. Part
2 was a repetition of the same items in
different combinations. Finally the
whole troupe sang in the Arab God
Save the Queen, and the performance
concluded