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left them of Upper Burma, and were amply provided for by the Burmese Government. Now there is no retreat, and there will be no peace till the last head is sent in. This sounds queer from a Christian missionary, but it is the truth. You can't attack dacoity organized into a system for centuries by ordinary process of law. You must regard it as a system akin to an exaggerated Thuggee, and act accordingly."

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"I am in a perfect duel all the time about that fatal memorandum I told you of. At the same time that I am praised to the skies, I am simply slapped in the face every day, and harassed till I am ready to hang myself.

"The Karen deputation waited on a high official' here, and protested as vigorously as I had done. It did no good whatever. He was full of fulsome compliments on what the Karens had done, etc., but a magnificent non possumus was all they, I, or other missionaries could get out of him.

"Meanwhile the work goes on. Karens are ordered all over the country to hand in their arms to Burmese officials. In ever so many villages,

though they have been months waiting, they have not the requisite number (five) of guns, simply because there are no arms for sale. Guns are therefore confiscated, unless they make it all right' with the Burmese officials.

"My indictment is—

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"1. We warned the Government on the 7th of November, 1885, by Sayáh Too-Thah, at the secretariat, of the insurrection that killed poor St. Barbe. I was not even in Rangoon at the time. The urgency was so great that the old man actually forced his way into Government House, though I was expected only two days after, and pleaded for Government arms and ammunition.

"On my return I, after weeks of hard fighting, got permission to arm my people. I did so, and so the insurrection, though starting right among my villages, never did us any damage, but went over to Bassein, and was crushed by the Bassein mission. Warnings of the other insurrections were as contemptuously treated, but our missionaries backed me like men, and we saved our Christian Karens. We point with pride to the fact that every insurrection has been smothered in blood whenever it came into a Christian tract, while the Government has not quelled one.

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"2. To do this we armed ourselves at far more than treble price. I scarcely dare think of what God will say to these firms that have coined money out of these poor wretched Karens, impoverished by the dacoits, unable to get a Government gun to fight for their Queen with, and in danger of their lives every day from the rebels.

"To illustrate the case of thousands, I mention one whom I helped yesterday. After three months' hanging round Government offices, begging for a permit which the chief commissioner had peremptorily ordered, he got his permit. More than a month has the poor wretch been hanging round Rangoon to get a 'permission to purchase.' Yesterday I happened to go into the town magistrate's office, and, of course, a few words of 'vigorous Yankee dialect' (I was too mad to talk English) got me the required papers.

"The poor fellow cried like a child, and knelt before me (you know how much a Karen must feel to do this). He had been a prisoner to the dacoits, and a cross was made for his crucifixion. The dacoits took pains to make the cross Christian, and not Burmese pattern, and he only escaped when the moment had arrived for his crucifixion. He had no idea of escaping with his life, but hoped

to win an easier death than crucifixion.

He

had three shots fired at him within six feet, and plunged through the entire gang, cutting and hacking at him with their swords. This man had served' in the field under my own eye in the most gallant manner, and yet this was the treatment he had received from your British idol of red tape!

"3. Though we have served our Queen with our own arms, purchased at rates that would satisfy a Shylock, we have earned no exemption whatever, and must be treated like the universally disloyal Burmans. When I got the permit from the magistrate here, I went over to Scott and Co.'s and bought a Brummagem fifteen-shilling gun, and paid fifty rupees for it. I have lately sold the Government two hundred guns far better for fifteen rupees apiece.

"4. Whatever we have done for which we are so extravagantly praised is not one-hundredth part what we can do and will gladly do if we can only be let alone.

"5. We can easily garrison all Lower Burma at far less than one-third of the present cost; that is, with the exception, of course, of the cities.

"6. We can send detachments with troops to

Upper Burma if required.

Such detachments

would not, of course, be as efficient as in Lower Burma, where the men are acquainted with the country.

NOW.

"The Karens are surly because the men that have served for months and months without pay, are told that they are not 'Karen levies' because they have received no 'enlistment tickets.' They have seen their comrades shot down by their sides. Some carry dacoit bullets in their bodies, and others can show ghastly wounds, but they are not 'Karen levies' till they show their 'enlistment tickets.' Had I waited for these, the Hanthawaddy district would have been in a blaze like all the other districts.

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"I have exhausted my powder practising my villages, lest they 'shoot like sepoys.' to-day refused the privilege of buying powder at Karen expense, to make my men 'efficient,' till the requisite amount of red tape has been reeled off.

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Can you wonder hundreds of Karens have gone home sulky? You know a Karen never storms; he goes home sulky, and when you want him-he's like the Irishman's flea.

"As I wrote you, the country is flooded with

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