A WIPE AND QUEEN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 517, 24 December 1881, Page 2

A WIPE AND QUEEN.

It is generally believed that in India women are little better than domestic slaves ;■ but a recent event in the Burmese Court at Mandalay shows that King Theebaw has at last found his match, and a woman who can assert the rights of her sex. The Queen was recently confined of her third child, which proved a daughter. Now, King Theebaw desires to have an heir to the throne, and he resolved therefore, like Napoleon, to provide himself with another wife. Indeed, he bettered Napoleon, for he took two new wives, one of them the granddaughter of the Kan-Pat-Menghee, and the other the daughter of a minor official. The Quean soon heard of this, and, as she was unable to go to the King, she sent him a peremptory order to pub away his new wives at once. King Theebaw replied that he should do nothing of the kind, that ho was tired of Her Majesty, inasmuch as she only presented him with daughters, and that he was determined to free himself from her control and to be a real king. Seven or eight days were spent in angry messsges ; but at the end of that time, the Queen left her apartments and went to those of the King. Arrived there, she seized the monarch, carried him off to her own rooms, and locked him up with the baby. She then went off and attended to affairs of State, her first act being to cast the two new wives into prison, and to have them heavily manacled.