LORD ROBERTS’S “OLD FRIEND.”

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1303, 26 September 1914, Page 4

LORD ROBERTS’S “OLD FRIEND.”

With the contingents from the Indian native States goes one of the keenest and finest old soldiers that any race in the world can boast of—Major-General Sir Pertab Singhji, the Regent of the Indian State of Jodhpur. Sir Pertab Singhji Is 69, but he is one of those men who would be more vigorous at 70 than others are at

50. He did great work in the little State which hi? elder brother invited him to control. He reformed every department of the government, suppressed crime and robbery, built railways, constructed irrigations. The famine from which the State periodically suffered lost its terrors. The keen soldier, who had acted so vigorously as Regent, was allowed to goasA.D.C, to General Ellis in the Mohmand Expedition in 1897, and to Sir W. Lockhart in the Tirah campaign in 1898, where he was wounded and his services mentioned in despatches. The last service he saw was with the Jodhpur troops, whom he commanded with the British force in China. An upright, strong, straight living man, the very soul of honour, he has gained himself a welcome in any gathering of Englishmen in India. He is one whom Lord Roberts saw fit to shake by the hand and address, with the feeling of a life long friendship behind tbs word, as “old friend.” Despite his years, there is not a finer soldier in the world than this grand old warrior.