"DISTINCTIVELY BRITISH."

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXV, Issue LXV, 22 December 1913, Page 3

"DISTINCTIVELY BRITISH."

: » . A NEW JUNGLE STORY. Entertaining-.a party of officers newly, appointed to Government service in India (says the Westminster Gazette) Xfprd Crewe said they had to answer for and uphold the name and character of Britain in the very responsible positions which they will hold in India. The name and character of an Englishman, of a Briton, however, was differently considered in different parts of India. Quite necessarily in a country, where there are so many different civilisations, what might be expected of an Englishman in Calcutta or Bombay was obviously not precisely the same as was expected of an Englishman who was administering a. wild dis- | ttlct inhabited by uncivilised tribes. *;'I remember hearing years ago in India," '* -proceeded his lordship, "a story of a young subaltern who went alone on a shooting expedition away into ihe wild country of the Malabar coast. The poor fellow was attacked by fever in the jungle, died, and was Twined, :and the people he died felt themselves in no little .difficulty sas to how his spirit might be pacified . jand Jiot Jiaunt them. It was necessary, therefore, to place upon his /grave something distinctively British, •seMch would keep the spirit quiet. They were a hundred miles from any eaastonment, but I was told that a small party of these simple folk went Sown to this cantonment and purchased a "bottle of whisky, two bottles q? soda water, and a paper of cheroots, wMeh they placed on the grave; and I was told that, in. spite of difficulties, ev«ry year a party of them trotted down for the same purpose. '•■■'■:".""TWeU, whisky and soda-water, are not ffyings to be sp\lrned at the proper time and place, still less cigars, but I should somehow w'i&h that the <-rncre?te expression of our national genius had been m some -respects different."