SUPERSTITION OF THE BURMESE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXIX, Issue 115, 18 May 1906, Page 1

SUPERSTITION OF THE BURMESE.

THE ROYAL VISIT,

REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENT

PERTH, April 27. Colonel A. Tracey, commander of the Royal Artillery at Rangoon, who is on a three months' holiday to the eastern- states, touched at Fremantle yesterday on the R.M.S. Oroya. He told a remarkable story illustrating the extent of superstitition in Burmah. During the recent visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales a report spread that the Princess had dreamed that she had been poisoned by natives, and that the Prince had issued instructions to employ Indians for the purpose of poisoning the Burmese. Colonel Tracey added: "There was a visitation of plague in Burmah at the time, and, by a curious Oriental deductive reasoning, native agitators proceeded to state that the people were dying, not of plague, for they were urged there was no plague, but from the effects of the poison which the Indian natives had put into their wells at. night, strewn along their roads, and thrown into their houses. Were Europeans and half-castes dying from plague? they were asked. No, only Burmese and Zerbaddis, who are, to all intents and purposes, Burmese. People were urged to guard against these murderous machinations. Every well is reported to be closed with a wooden lid, fastened with a lock and key. Drinking water is kept under continuous observation, and at 8 p.m. all pots in which water has been keot are emptied, and turned with their mouths downwards, in order that no poison may be put in them. A light is put in every house, so that any intruder may be discovered. "The most serious development is regarded as the appointment of a vigilance committee in each sectionj with patrols, consisting of six strong men, armed with sticks, who are on strict watch at night, and waylay every Indian native they find going about after certain hours. Many assaults have been committed, and a shooting party, taken for prisoners, had to run fqitheir lives. It is current in Rangoon that all over Mandalay people believe they. are being poisoned by order: of the Government, because of the Princess of Wales's dream. Burmese are ruled by fate in everything, consequently they are intensely superstitious—the most superstitiojis people in the Orient, I think—and when people are so constituted argument is of little avail."