HONOUR AMONG THIEVES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIV, Issue 52, 1 March 1879, Page 4

HONOUR AMONG THIEVES.

(london Times.') Bellew, in bis account of the mission which he accompanied into Afghanistan, tells a most remarkable story, which mey be quoted as illustrating not only the determination which the race ig capable of, but of a sense of honour — -such was the word the relator used; and although it is only honour among " thieves, there was mixed, ,wilh it a desire for the family to which the hero , «f the slory belonged which <wouid be „. iireditabler anywhere. Toe per^bii who tells the tale wts «ithia he f >ii«a Oflr o£ iho^ctot b i Q it, Tne whole

of hia family had, at r former period, become a band of robberp, which occupHtion they practised eeetningly on the sly, and their neighbors were kept in (he dark about their doings. Tbey had determined on robbing a house at some distance, and, going there during the night, they made a hole through the mud wall. Khen Gul's brother, like Oliver Twist, was passed in, aad he began to laud out whatever was within his reach. The people in the house chenced to wttken up, upon whirh the brother tried to make his escape, but wbilo in the act of returning through the wall, those oo the inside caught him by tho feet, Now began a tug liko the " (ug of war;" fiercely they pulled to get him out of the hole, but it was useless; those wiihin had one or iwn holding on to each leg, and the bur»lur was held as if iv a vice. The foar thut they would be recognised and detected become at last tha dominant feolin;?, aad, «-.s they couU not prs3ibly pull him out, they determined on en extreme measure, and one so very extreme that it is hard to believe it could have occurred to any ethers lhan these knife-using Athena. The only plan left to prevent identity woa to cut off (he head, carryiu« it away, and leave the body; and "the very striking part of thie tele lies in the fact that it was done at the suggestion of the man himself, ml, as "ho expressed it at the iußtact, so that •' the honour of the family might be preBerved ucdefileiV' Thie was done. They flad with the head only, leaving all the spoil which had been thrown out; and as Khan Gul ended the story, be thnnked God that the honour of his house had by these means been preserved. There is something heroic in such acts. Neither Agememnon nor Achilles, as described by Homer, suggests a character cspable of such seffdevotion.