KILLED BY A TIGRESS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9229, 17 June 1893, Page 2 (Supplement)

KILLED BY A TIGRESS.

SIR JAMES DORMER'S DEATH. < A few weeks ago one of our cable messages announced the death of Sir James Charlemayne Dormer, K.C.8., Commander-in-Chief of the Madras Army. Papers now to hand bring full particulars of the circumstances which caused his death. It appears that on April 25 His Excellency, with Major Kekewich, Captain Cavaye, and Mr. Wopshare, went out after a tiger in the direction of the Pykara jungles. About 10 miles away from Ootacamund, and in the direction of the Pykara Road, His Excellency came upon a tigress, which he shot at and wounded in the chest. The wounded animal then bolted into the shola, leaving a trail of blood behind. Sir James followed her up, always an injudicious thing to do, and coming suddenly upon her she charged him. Sir James, not being prepared for the attack, fired from his hip, hitting the tigress in the stomach. Being on the steep side of a bank at the time, he seems to have slipped and fallen, and the tigress seized his right leg, and mauled the calf and foot severely. Major Kekewich and the others were within a short distance of the Chief, but not knowing what had happened, did nob come to his assistance. However, the dogs came up and wont for the tigress, which, turning to attack them, left His Excellency and retreated into the shola again, where she was met by Captain Cavaye and Mr. Wapshare ; the former at once tired and killed her. Assistance was at once rendered, and the Commander-in Chief was brought to his home by the evening (the accident having taken place at about two p.m.), and was promptly attended to by Surgeon-Major Walker. For somo days he appeared to bo doing woll, but a relapse sot in, and he died on May 3. The deceased gentleman came of an old Buckinghamshire family. He was a cousin of the real Roger Tichborne, and his career was a brilliant one. Ho saw plenty of hard fighting in the Crimea, the Indian Mutiny, and China, and was engaged in the Egyptian Campaign of 1882, and tho Soudan Expedition of 1885. It was during this campaign that Sir James Dormer performed that amusing feat which will always be associated with his name. According to one account, he 19 said to have galloped to the front before an engagement,and, to the astonishment and horror of the advancing foe, to have taken out his glass eye, flinging it in tho air and catching it, while he shouted in derision, "Can your Mahdi do this?" He occupied the position of Com-mandor-in-Chief to Madras since March, 1891.