CHARGED BY SIX HUNDREDLEPERS.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9289, 14 December 1895, Page 3

CHARGED BY SIX HUNDREDLEPERS.

AN EX-POLICEMAN'S EXPERIENCE,

It was late and warm, and we'd been talking of Lazarus at the gates of St. Paul's, Lambeth, as we lounged along his beat, when incidentally I mentioned something about lepers. He flashed his lamp mechanically down an alley, rattled a latch or two, and then took up the tale, thus :— "Oi dunno nothin' about no Kiplins— never hard tell of enny Silver Man you're spakin' of. But I'll tell you what Oi do know—Oi know hwat it is to be charrged by six hundred scaly leppards, and it quite satisfied mc ! Quite ! Ye see I wint out to the Aist Injies—Penang, ay ye know where that is. I was p'licin' in Liverpool before that, though Oi'm Oirish meself. I was tould it was better paid out there abroad, an' nothin' to do but patrowl around watchin' that the haythen Malays an' Tammle p'lice (they're from Madras, "y e know) Kept awake and didn't go robbin' on their own. But it wasn't any par'dise, hAvat with gettin' yer pay in dirty two-'n-six penny dollars, so that it took the full o'yer helmet to buy anythin'—not that there was anythin' to buy, barr'n dhrink, an' not much o' that, nayther, outside the ould Dutch fort we had for a barricks. They've a thrue sayin' out there, 'Nothin' for nothin', an' dam little for a dollar !' Still, if you're like mc, got no trade barr'n stand'n' six-foot-two, the Aist Injies is mebbe as good a place to p'lice in as annywhere. For one thing, ye see, them Chinee are aisy to hanle, day or night. You'll mebbee* have a matter o' three or four thousand of 'em screeching away over a faction-fight in a back street, all of 'em with their sleeves rowled up, and one of their trouser legs too, to show which side they're on when the scrap mixes 'em up; an' some'll have bottles filled with water (an' holy water at that, begad ; anyhow, their priests reckons to bless it) for convenience of nob smashin', and another'll have a len'th o' iron like a six months' old poker, whar we call a fightin'-iron, and the end of it lapped wi' string to stick to bether, and bethune them and meat-knives, and bricks and annythin'else appropriate, they'll fight contented a matter of half .a day. But, of coorse, we don't let 'em; us Europeans, an' mebbe some Punjabis with us, just elbows in an' collects them like a bo'quet, half a dozen pig, tails in each han', and marches 'em off as peaceful as so many corrupses at a Avake. We give 'em * Ghee Hin' an' ' Ghee Hok'—that's what these Chinese secret societies calls theirselves —if they try any bottles an' fightin'-irons on us. " But, as I was tellin' them leppards. You know there's a fine green little island about four miles away from Penang—they call it Pulo Jerajak—where all the leppards in them parts is sent by the Guv'ment. Like Hawaii? Don't know how high it is—mebbe a thousan' foot. But

that's neither here nor there—l wish ye wouldn't interrupt. Well, hwat with Singapore, an' Malacca, an' Penang, Pulo Jerajak'a.pretty solid Avith cripples ; all sortsChinee, an' Malay, an' Taminle, an' all the rest of 'em, never doing a hand's turn, but just gettin' doctored an' grubbed at the Guv'ment hospital as if they Avas noblemen at a hydro., besides havin' lashins of opium apiece every day to keep 'em amused. They've a grand time.

" Well, one day the Englishman who's superintendent of the hospital (there's only liim, an' his wife, an' a sort of apothecary, besides ahan'ful o' niggers helpin') telephones OA*er to our central p'lice station for help, 'cos the leppards was mutiueerin', he said. Nothin' avos done just then, the super being away at his tirFn, but by an' bye another telephone conies, savin' as lioav the leppards Avere raising blue murdher. Well, with that the super sends o\*er an' tells the Guvnor (he wasn't proper Guvnor, you know—only Resident Counc'llor, but it's same thing in them parts), and he sends avoi\l to send a fooree over to oppress the reA-olution. With that a big steam-launch Avas ordered round to the jetty, and a dozen of us European p'lice, an' about as many Punjabis Avith carbines, steps aboord with the Super an' his brother (that was the Resident Counc'llor— him an' the Super was brothers), an' away Aye starts full speed for Pulo Jerajak, not thinkm' nothin' except what a convanient sea trip it was.

" Well, Aye pulled up at the place in about fiA'e an' twenty minutes, an' the boss of the hospital was there to Avelcome us, and he avos lookin' bad, no mistake. Sezee, - They'll tear the place doArn, yer Exc'llency, an' flog 'em yon cannot, seeing as their flesh would drop off at a touch. Come an' argue Avid em, yer Exc'llency.' So the Guvnor—that is to say the Resident Counc'llor—steps up to the hospital, where there Avas the full o' six hundred leppards hoppin' about with only a bit of a petticoat on ; some with only a limb an' a half left, an' not many wid twice that, not to mention missing noses. Ugh ! I can see ! em yet. Well, ho ast 'em what Avas the trouble, an' they shouted out in Malay (I can chakap Malay yon know) as their chandoo —that's opium—had been stopped for a Aveek, an' they meant havin' it. Pore beggars ! it Avas harrud on 'em in one way, considerm' that their ha'porth o' chandoo is beer an' bacca an' a bank holiday all in one, to them. But disc'pline's disc'pline (as who should know better than mc v ), an' if they misbehaved the hospital super hadn't any other Avay to punish 'em, except stopp'n' it, on account of their health. So the Resident Counc'llor he calls out loud to a few of the noisiest as they wouldn't get no chandoo for a fortnight for makin' the disturbance, and with that he turned away dignified like, as much as to say, ' The audjence is now over—go ahead, band.' "Well, about a second afther, or it might be as much as a second an' a half, whoosh ! whirroo ! fix bayonets'!—them divils o' leppards set up such a howly murther yell of Pukkul dia (Avhich manes 'brain the beggars'—you knoAV I spake Malay), and then all the scaly mob of 'em comminst hopp'n' an' limp'n frantic-like tOAvards us— or tOAvards the Resident Guvnor, I should say—as if they'd tear him to bits. There wasn't annythin' to be scart at, really ; the whole rigimint couldn't ha' tackled a healthy man, even with all their crutches; but it was the horror of it, man ! I've tuk 'em up, many a time, for lyin' decomposin' in the street, contrary to law, and not missed a meal over it: but six hunderd of 'em in a bunch, all gnashin' their teeth diabolic, and clench'n what bits of fingers their Creator had left 'em—l Avouldn't ha' had 'em got hold o' mc, not if St. Pathrick himself had stood up an' axed mc. " What did Ido ? I did like the rest ay 'em, Resident Guvnor an' all, an' right-about-faced-quick-march for'the beach, on'y it was double, an' not quick march. I was a thrifle behind my super, but on'y a thrifle, wonderin' if I could sAvim the four mile back without losin' a leg to a shark, when I heard the GuA'.'nor (he wasn't a proper guvnor, ye know—on'y Resident Dep ty)—the Guvnor shouts out - Form your men up, Bob.' (Bob was his brother, the super.) So he gey the word, and we fell in right at the water's edge, with the Punjabis in front stickin' their carbines out like so many crosses to a legion o' .divils, and not feelin' very sure they'd work the, charm. But it did; it brought the-hay then up,; because3they- didn't know if they mightn't be shot, though they felt safe against flogging. So they halted some ways off, an' after them as had han's had done throwin' stones, the Guvnor called out from the r'ar rank that they could have their chandu this time. " Aye,' sez I, ' an' every time, for all I'll stop ye, ye divils.' An' then we tumbled aboord the launch agin and went back to Penang -but touch food I could hot for days after, thinkin' o' them scaly, decomposed, fish-atin' leppards. It puts mc off my mate when I remimber it, even now—no, not off liquor, hivin bless yer honur !"— Pall Mall Gazette.