THE MASSACRES IN BURMAH.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1654, 9 June 1879, Page 3

THE MASSACRES IN BURMAH.

A correspondent of the “ Daily News ” gives the following account of what led to the massacres committed by order of the King of Burmah. “The presence,” he says, “of the Nyoung Yan at the British Residency unsettled the King’s mind. There were constant rumours of projected risings in favor of the genial Turanian Falataff. The two princes were got away from Mandalay by our Government in November, and were sent off to Calcutta; but the mischief had been already done. The constant suspense in which he had been kept, coupled with the sudden release from the monastic restraint to which he had been accustomed, drove the young King to drink, and he very soon showed signs of the hereditary madness of his family. The homisidal mania of his grandfather Tharrawadi soon developed itself. Theebau commenced to lunge at the court heralds, because they appeared to him not to display sufficient awe for the ruler of land and sea, and flung spears at some of his Ministers, whose coats were not of a length or cut satisfactory to the Royal tastes. This rapid progress towards autocratic rule was materially helped on by quarrels of the Ministers among themselves, and in a very short time all traces of the vaunted Constitutional Government disappeared. His fears continued to gain upon him as one after another of the princes pined away and died in the frightful underground prisons of the palace, loathsome with the filth never removed since these dens were constructed years ago. Fear of British intervention alone prevented him from putting them all to death months ago. Suddenly the news of the disaster in Zululand reached Mandalay. That apparently decided him, and a work of cold-blooded butchery began which will hardly find a parrallel in history. At first the massacre was carried on " Bhama thouzan ateing,” according to old Burmese use and wont. The victims were led out of their cells in twos and times, brought to shekho to the King, and then disposed of in ordinary Bhuddhist fashion. The head of the victim was tied down to his ankles, and a blow on the hack of the neck from a heavy club put him out of pain. But this soon proved too mild a spectacle for the fiendish mania of Theebau. The Thongz u prince, whose insolent bearing English visitors to Mandalay will remember, on being brought to do reverence to his young brother—the King is just twenty-one professed an utter scorn for what could bo done to him, and was flogged to death. The late King’s oldest son, the truculent Mekhaya prince, who used to look upon all foreignen as bo much dirt under his feet, turned craven, and was taunted and driven to madness before receiving the blow which only half stunned him, when his writhing body was thrown into the gigantic trench dug to receive the victims. The massacre was carried cn in a leisurely fashion, extending over several days, fiendish ingenuity being taxed to the utmost to devise fresh horrors, Moung Oke, the Governor of Rangoon, when it was captured by the British in 1856, had his nose and mouth filled with gunpowder, a light was applied, and he was then flung into the trench to be stifled by tho bodies of succeeding victims. The daughter of the Nyoung Yan, a young girl of sixteen, was handed over to eight soldiers of the Royal Guard, to be pitched insensible into the same_ heaving grave, when they had gratified their brutal lust. The wife of one Prince, far advanced in pregnancy, was ripped up, and the agonised husband was brought to see his wife and child once more before he died. After some days of this sort of thing, the exocutioneers got weary and hurried through their task. Little children were put in blankets and swung against the palace walls; women were battered over tho head, as taking loss trouble than tying them up so as to get a blow at the nook. Altogether about ninety persona are believed to have been put to death in this way. No one was allowed to leave the palace while the massacre was going on, but it seems certain that Mr Shaw, our Resident, was inside the palace walls within a very short time of its commencement. He had been to a concert given by ono of the Ministers. One object of this pwai was to drown tho cries of the victims. Tho remonstrance which Mr Shaw, at tho instance of our Government, addressed to the King, was received with the utmost contempt, and ho was told in as many words to mind his own business ; that Burmese domestic affairs had nothing whatever to do with the British Government.”