RELIEF OF LUCKNOW

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 106, 1 November 1933, Page 11

RELIEF OF LUCKNOW

SURVIVOR IN CANADA

ANNIVERSARY TRIBUTE. (From "The Post's" Representative.) VANCOUVER, September 27. Canadians are paying tribute, on the 76th anniversary of the relief of Lucknow, to one of its nine survivors, Major C. G. Palmer,, C.1.E., of Duncan, Vancouver Island, who, as a boy of ten, acted as ammunition carrier and dispatch bearer in the beleagured garrison, and later had a distinguished career in the Engineering Service of the Government of India. The London ".Times" simultaneously pays tribute to the survivors, in a sketch written by Arthur 11.I 1. DashwOod, whom Palmer recalls as the "siege baby," as he was born at that time. Palmer is the only living holder of the Lucknow Medal, awarded him in recognition of his services. All nine survivors were children at the time of the siege. Since the last anniversary, the ranks have be'en Teduced by three deaths. . Palmer, son of an Indiaji Army general, retired to a farm near Duncan 24 years ago, and has played a prominent part in local affairs as municipal councillor, police commissioner, and president of the United Farmers of British Columbia. "Our elders showed the anxiety they felt,," he said, "but we children took things as they came —as children always do. I recall the excited buzz of talk, about a.Scotch.1 girl, named Jean, who said she saw and heard the Highlanders approaching two days bofore they got in and brought relief. Even we youngsters took note of that talk. I would not call the incident supernatural. It may have been that the girl had a much keener sense of hearing than we, but nevertheless it was a popnlar topic in the garrison, and was regarded as a great mystery. INDIA TODAY. "About India today? Well, I would like to put it thig way. There are a lot of good men there. So far as I can see, nine-tenths of life goes on just the same as it used to, and I think things wDI come out all right. "That recent murder of a Magistrate at MidnapoTe. It was a nasty thing and the third murder there since 1931. You know, these murders are done by misled youths, who have been contaminated by the teaching of wild fanatics. They fly off tho deep end without much persuasion. ''It has always been rather a surprising thing to me that the British Government has so entirely given up the old India idea of holding the head of the family responsible for the actions of the junior members. Among the Hindus, the head of a family, which might include as many as fifty households, has immense authority, and, if the younger members get into bad company and murder officials, the head must have neglected his duty to keep order among his own people. I wonder that the Government has not adopted some means of punishing the family head, as would be done by all Oriental Governments."