The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1907-06-07

While American newspapers have
in almost every instance devoted one
or two of their crowded columns to
sketches of the career of Lady. Bur-
dett-Coutts, on the occasion of her
death on Sunday last. yet so vast and
so manifold was the range of her
beneficent activity that numerous in
teresting episodes of her life were
necessarily omitted. 1t is to these
that purposes to devote few brief
paragraphs.
We have all read Of her foundation
and endowment of the bishopries of
Cape Town, in South Africa, in Cana
da: of her transformation of some of
the worst slums in the poorest Sec
tons of London from plague spots into
healthy and prosperous districts, and
OF her most successful championship
OF the donkeys. which until she es-
poused their cause were shamefully
i'll treated by the London costermon-
gers. class by whom they are almost
exclusively employed. BY means OF
annual exhibitions of costers' jackass-
es and the grant of substantial none
tary prizes for those animals showing
the most signs of careful and kindly
treatment she instituted new and
altogether happier era for the patient
long-eared friend of mankind, and
won for herself among the coster class
the picturesque name of "Our Lady
of the Moke' But in none of the
obituaries of this marvellous woman,
whose sagacious dispensation of her
extensive charities covered a period
of more than three score years and
ten, can 1 find any reference to the
fact that it is to her that the civilized
world is indebted for the suppression
of piracy in the China and the East
Indian seas. The baroness was just
ly celebrated as philanthropist. But
l doubt whether there are many who
know that her philanthropy ever took
the form of eXterminating Chinese,
Malay and Tongkingese pirates.
Away back in the second and third
decade of the reign of Queen Victoria,
when steam navigation was in it's in
fancy, piracy played a far more seri-
Gus role in maritime intercourse with
the Far East than people today can
imagine. In fact, every vessel that
had occasion to traverse the Straits of
Malacca was compelled to carry guns
to repel those fierce buccaneers who
were the scourge Of the seas of the
Far Orient AS the British govern
ment did not see its way to devote the
necessary ships to dealing with this
danger, Lady Murdett-Courts, at
considerable cost, fitted out an armed
naval expedition, for the avowed pur-
pose OF hunting the pirates to their
LARS and of exterminating them. She
placed the expedition under the COM
mand of two young naval officers lent
to her for the purpoce by the Admiral
ty, Harry Keppel and James Brooke.
The expedition proved eminently sue
cessful, so much so that the Straits
OF Malacca are today as safe as the
British Channel; and, while Harry
keppel returned to civilization, to die
two or three years ago as admiral of
the fleet and as Father of the English
Navy, James Brooke resigned his COM
mission in the navy, and, having be-
come associated with the Sultan of
Borneo. eventually became possessed
OF the independent principality of
Sarawak, which occupies a consider
able portion of the island of Borneo.
Lady Burdett-Coutts played an all
important role in this strange vent
ure of Brooke, supporting him with
money, and especially with political
influence in England, of which he
stood in great need in the earlier days
OF his Oriental sovereignty, as the
authorities at home were disposed to
regard with misgiving the attempt of
a subject of the British Crown to set
himself up as an Independent ruler.
Thanks to this assistance, the princi-
patty of Sarawak has prospered be-
You'd all anticipation, and if today Sir