THE MADAGASCAR MASSACRE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2183, 2 April 1891, Page 1

THE MADAGASCAR MASSACRE.

Oar cablegrams on Friday announced that one of tbs Governors of Madagascar who had been guilty of recent atrocities bad been exocxted, Mr HovTden Smith recently supplied to the Sydney Morning Herald soma particulars of. these, atrocities received from friends in Madn gasoir. ,Tbg atrocities occurred duno g Christmas week, within fourteen days journey of Antananarivo the capital, the prime mover being Hove, Governor of Nosibe, in the province of Belanona, assisted by the help of bis brother Rdsamuel, who was spending tbs holidays with him. For some years past Ramiakatra (10 honours) hag availed himself of his position as Governor of Noasibe and the Belonona district as if be regarded bis duties as not “ to guide iba people in wisdom, (ruth, and above all] to be as a.parent and a lawyer to the ignorant and those of little knowledge,” but as if they “ were to impoverish and oppress the people,” and be a means of accumulating money and wealth for himself personally. At last, after having their cattle and ric<? fields seized by tha grasping ,Governor, some 200 of men, women, and children went to plead their, cause with Rajnakatra, the Governor. They went, -poor deluded fools, to ask that; stonyhearted scoundrel to give them back the, rice.fields and the cattle be bad .stolen, while the leaders of their tribes been at the capital complaining to the Queen and bis Excellency the Prime Minister. He laughed in their faces and bade them begone, end because they were armed with spears and shields for their own protection be refused to allow them to enter the town. Too crushed in spirit to appeal to arms, 'be broken hearted, almost homeless, baud withdrew to a hill some distance off and enramped. Not a spear had been thrown, not a shot had been fired. They bad but made a request, and, when it was scornfully rejected, they bowed down with a mental burden greater than they could bear ; bad withdrawn and encamped on a hillside in the land of their forefathers, because there was no place that could be called home. By Wednesday morning some 500 soldiers were assembled in the town, and on Christmas Day some 700, beaded by (be Governor’s brother, Easamael, sallied forth and attacked the Betsimisaraka on tbs hillside. The B«tSimisarakn, seeing the army from town approaching, proved that their mission was a pacific one by throwing down their spears and running aw»y. Rasamuel and his myrmiduos pursued. Some of the flying band then gave up all hopes, and sitting down on the hillside, waited for their pursuers to capture then?. Eleven of these poor broken spirited, people were by order of the'; commander killed on the spot by having their beads swan off with doll spears, and | were otherwise tortured and ,butchered. Niue more men and a number of women and children were captured and up to latest advices some 70 ojr more of them have met similar painful: deaths. In bringing in the captives they were stripped naked, and the {women left at .the mercy of the ruffian soldiery. After being slashed with spears and bayonets their heads wore saWa off in the presence of tbs Governor, and the bodies thrown to tbs village dogs. The horrible massacre' went on', for ..days, . ths . poor . fugitives being hunted down without regard to sex or age,

AN EXTRAORDINARY SHOT.

“Yam,’’ in the Asian, a journal published in Calcutta, tells the following extraordinary shooting tale -1 took the Martini, and ae'eotiog the finest boras, 1 took | a good steady shot behind the shoulder, and let drive. To ipy disgust I Bair the ballet ricocheting away over the maiden. “ A clean miss,” 1 thought, and brought down, my rile to put another' cartridge in, when my ayes, who was a little to one aide, called out ** Lug goya," I looked up and saw my friend the buck, who had mu about a dozen yards, rear straight on end and fall over backwards. We run towards it, and had almost reached the spot where ha was lying, when to my utter surprise I saw another fine young buck lying stone dead a short way to my left. I went up to him, aud incredible through it may seem 1 found the bullet bad passed ia at bis right eye and out through bis Isft without touching the bone, dropping him in his tracks. It then bit the other buck in the heart, passed through and through him, and out away over the maidan, and 1 thought I bad missed I The only way I can account for such a fluke ia that the nine or ten bucks were all grouped closely together, and that just as I pulled the trigger on the one I h«d picked' out another, crossing from the opposite aide, must haye brought his heed in the line of fire.

A despatch from Sacramento, March 5, says the appearance of the San Francisco Examiner with an account purporting to state how Elwood Brunner, an Assembly man from Sacramento, sold a position in the San Francisco Police Force to a reporter for 400dol, created a tremendous sensation,