MISFORTUNE'S FAVOURITE

Wanganui Chronicle, 24 August 1901, Page 1

MISFORTUNE'S FAVOURITE

Few men have been so assailed by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune as an inmate of the Giiildford Workhouse Infirmary, who* has just died. James Cutterson Pratt, the son of a barrister, with a life interest in property in Northumberland, was born in 1833, "with a dab in the eye." At thirteen he became a cadet in the Naval College of the East India Company, and while in his teens was fighting Malay pirates in Borneo. A lieutenant at twenty-one, he took part in the Kaffir War of r52-53. Wherever there was fighting Pratt was sure to be in il. At Sebastopol a, bursting shell smashed him badly —a shattered leg was only the first of Fortune's buffets. All through life the fickle goddess toyed with him as a cat with a mouse, crushing him from time to time, but always postponing the coup de grace. He was nursed and patched up, and got back just in time to take an active part in the. fierce fighting at Lucknow, Delhi, and Cawnpore. He emerged with distinction, and Fortune seemed for once to smile on him, for he was made resident magistrate of a district in the Bombay Presidency, and married a niece of Sir William Chaytor. But the sunshine of domestic happiness was soon clouded over. The vessel that was taking his wife and daughter to England went down off Cape Coast with all on board. He was invalided Home, but the shock had been so great that he was landed at Capetown, and remained there two years with clouded mind. And when he recovered it was only to find that he had been reported dead and'struck off the East India, Company's list of those entitled to pensions. He gave up trying to persuade the company that he • was alive, and combined sheep farming at Roudebosch with coast surveying for the Cape Government. On the advice of a geologist he purchased, for £350, 1800 acres near the Limpopo, including the site of Johannesburg. But there was no luck for him, for scarcely had he settled down to farming when the Zulu war broke out. He joined the volunteers under Lord Chelmsford, and was one of the 600 who marched to Pretoria after the revolt of the Boers. When the South African Republic was declared, Pratt, in spite of all temptation to belong to the Boer nation, remained an Englishman, was escorted across the border, and had hia property confiscated. But the cruelest of all was still to come. When he got back to England he found that not only were his relatives dead, but that he himself was, too. At least, so the War Office told him; their books said he had been dead fifteen years, and that settled the matter. When he protested that in spite of his battles on behalf of an ungrateful country, he was still alive and kicking, he was tpld in effect that his death was a close jugee, and that the War Office authorities could not see a dead man. Pratt came to the conclusion that perhaps the War Office was right after all, and that he was better dead. But "Death his dart shook, but delayed to strike." The shock of the rebuff paralysed Pratt, but a merciful relief was denied him. Without friends and without money, he sought refuge in the Workhouse Infirmary, and there, after lingering out his last years, died a pauper. His case was brought before Mr Chamberlain, but the Colonial Secretary having no funds available, refewed the matter to the High Commissioner for South Africa a few months ago. It would only be in keeping ■with the rest of his ill-fortune if he died just as a letter was on the way Home, saying that some provision would be made for him.