Sir Pertab Singh.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 October 1922, Page 4

Sir Pertab Singh.

LONDON, Sept, •!. 'Throughout the Empire, wherever t the fame of a great ruler, great sol- , dier, and great sportsman lias spread, j there will he deep regret at the news i of the death of General Sir Pel-tab j Singh. Especially in England is it remembered that he came, a man of 70, to fight on the western front during the war. And some words of his will also.he remembered: “1 hope,” he said, “that the time is soon coining when 1 shall charge the Germans at the head of ray Lancers and die for the j King-Emperor.” i Maharajah Portab Singh, a son oil the oldest among the great families ol j India whose fanic shines down from j the far dawn of history, was horn in i 1815. In liis long and wonderful life | he w«n honour in many fields. While i still a young man lie was invited to | Jodhpur by an elder brother and ■ placid in charge of the administration of that troubled State. What he did there is written in the histories. Crime was suppressed : railways were introduced ; the country was defended by great irrigation schemes against the famine which had been among the greatest of its yearly trials

Together with his devotion to his own land and people went a passionate enthusiasm for the British rule. Proudest- among the proud in his own country, lie held it an honour to ride in the Diamond Jubilee procession and again at the Coronation of King Edward VII. “There are only two countries in the world in which I am interest oil—England and Rnjputana,” lie said once. “In London T feci almost as much at home as in my own countrv.”

Constantly ho lent his aid to the British forces in the Far "East. Ho took part in the Mohmund Expedition ol 1897; in the Tirali campaign of 1898 he was wounded and mentioned in despatches; he went with the Bri- . liMi to China in 1900 at the head of . his Jodhpur Imneria) 8 u'vioo troops. ! And when the black days of 1914 came he and his young nephew, for whom lie acted as regent at Jodhpur, were among the first of the groat princes of India to hurry to our aid in France. "Every chief in India would serve as a private soldier without pay and without rank,” he said. “All his sub- j jects look to their chief as second God j and all chief's look to the King-Einper- I or as second God ; not first God—second God.” |

In the faith of the Rajput warrior I ? desired to die on the field of battle. That was denied to him, but he returned to ids own land with honours 5 r*.jvy upon him, a li cut-genera] in th e i'-iti'sh Armv. and ‘with the decora(rins of ii.n.C., (il'.V.O, and ■C.C.S.J. And never were honours more splendidly won or more gallantly WCill.