HONOUR AMONG THIEVES.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 2, Issue 71, 8 February 1879, Page 2

HONOUR AMONG THIEVES.

Bellow, in his account ci which he accompanied into A tells a most romarkablo story, r be quoted as illustratingnot only tiiu mination which the race is capable o.

of a sense of honour—such was the word the relator used; and although it is only honour among thieves, there was mixei with it a desire for the honour of t': • family to which the hero of the story belonged which would bo creditable anywhere. The person who tells the tale was called Khan Gaul, and he was one of the actors in it. The whole of his fiunih had, at a former period, become a band of robbers, which occupation they prai tised seemingly on tho sly, and ti neighbours were kept in the dark ah their doings. They had determined robbing a house at some distance, a going there during the night, they n a hole through the mud wall. Gaul's brother, like Olive" '.'

passed in, and he began to hand whatever was within his reach. Ine people in the house chanced to waken up, upon which the brother tried to make his escape, but while in the act of returning through the wall, those on the insido caught him by the feet. Now began a

" tug of war ;" fiercely they pulled to got him out of the hole, but it was useless ; those within had one or two holding on to each, ley, and the burglar was held as. if in a vice. The fear that they would be recognized and detected became at last the dominant feeling, and, as they could not possibly pull him out, they determined on an extreme measure, and one so very extreme that it is hard to believe it could have occurred to any others than these knife-using Afghans. The only plan left to prevent identity was to cut oft' the head, carrying it away, and leave the body ; and the very striking part of this tale lies in the fact that it was done at the suggestion of tho man himself, and, as he expressed it at tho instant, so that " the honour of the family might bo preserved uudefiled." This was done. They (led with the head only, leaving all the spoil which had been thrown out; and as Khan Gaul ended the story, he thanked trod that the honour of his house had by these means been preserved. There is something heroic in such acts. Noither Agamemnon nor Achilles, as described by Homer, suggests a character capable of such self-devotion.—Corres-pondence London Times.