BURMESE MINISTERS AND THEIR MASTER.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3180, 7 September 1881, Page 4

BURMESE MINISTERS AND THEIR MASTER.

• Wk: , * ~ Mindohn Mm, the late King of Purnian, heard in 1874 that the elections had gone against the Ministry and that ■ iaraeli was to be Premier, he sighed and said: "Then poor G-a-la-sa-tong (Gladstone) is in prison, I suppose. lam sorry for him. I don't think he was a bad fellow, and I gave him the Fifteen-String Tsalway (the Burmese order of knighthood) a year or two ago." That is the Burmese notion of how to settle the Opposition. The lines of statesmen in the Royal City of Gems are not cast in pleasant places. If they rise rapidly, they come down with as much precipitation ; and their full i* as crushing as ordinarily it is inevitable. The coolie of today may be the Minister of to-morrow ; and a month hence he may be spread-eagled in the fourt of the palace, with a vertical sun bmting down on him and huge stones piled on his ohest and stomach. Or he may be treated even more summarily than this. "When about a year ago the Naingangya Woondouk, who was sent as Ambassador to the English Raj, came back to Mandalay to announce that his mission had failed, and that, in fact, after eight months' sojourn just within the British frontier he bad been told to go away, he did not survive long. It was a week or two before he saw the King, and when he did see him the meeting was unpleasant. Next day the portly Woondouk ''died of apoplexy." Sudden deaths were not at a!l uncommon in the late King's reign. An official displeased in some way, and Mindohu Mm said emphatically, " I don't want to see that man any more." The poor wretch left the royal presence to be seized by lictors outside and killed. A day or two afterwards His Majesty would ask vrhere Soand-So was. " Alhs ! ire," Wii? t.iie answer, " he died of chagrin shortly after tiie Lord of : artli aud Ocean cus' eyt's of displeasure on him." Then the Convener of the Fifth '-ireatSynod quoted n. wise saw from the I.α-ulianeedee, and turned his mind to other matters. Many peopl • died in the reign of Mindohu Mm. Nemlheless, the stories which oceasionnlly appeared in the English papers of his day are not true. He never got a pearide and " potted " hjs subjects from the palace verandahs when he was bored, They libelled him who said he did. He was a good Buddhist, and never took life of man or animal. Theebau is, perhaps, not quite so strict in his notions. When he first came to the throne, he unearthed the spear with which is grandfather Tharra Waddy used occasionally to spit his councillors. Theebau's aim was not quite so good, or his purpose was not so deadly. He prodded a few heralds and interpreters, and flung the epear at one or two of his father's advisers ; bufc lam not aware that he ever actually killed anybody. In fact, he gets on fairly well with his ministers, having drilled them into complete submission to his wishes. — Correspondent of the St. James' Gazette.