OCCASIONAL NOTE

A Dean Swift would hardly do justice to the satire suggested by Mr. Montagu’s homily to three Labour members on their sin of compiling a “collection of false statements and deductions” regarding India. The print is still barely dry on a speech by Mr. Montagu in which he pictured 315 million Indian people “eagerly awaiting” a decision of the House of Commons; in which he lent the imprimatur of his great office to the statement of an “Indian friend” that India now is “politically a different place to (sic) fourteen months ago”; and in which he raised a cheap laugh by suggesting that the Madras Government under the Liberal Lord Pentland opposed the Montagu scheme because they were out of touch with the Liberal currents generated by the war. The Labour members attacked by Mr. Montagu are perhaps in error. They have probably been listening to accounts of the Punjab rising given by Indian politicians whose credibility is not enhanced by the findings and revelations of the Leslie Jones judgment on the Lahore rebellion. Even so, Mr. Montagu might have left to a deputy the performance of a duty which, in his hands at least, is too suggestive of the proverb about the pot and the kettle to be agreeable – at least to those who know their India.

THE BURNING OF AMRITSAR MISSION CHURCH

LAHORE, JULY 15

The hearing in the Amritsar Rambagh Church burning case began on Monday last before a special tribunal consisting of Messrs. Brasher, Prenter and Harris. There were eight accused (four of whom were sentenced to transportation for life by the Martial Law Commission which disposed of the Amritsar Normal Girls’ School case) who were charged under section 121, 147, 295, 431, and 149 I.P.C. The Public Prosecutor read the complaint to the accused and detailed the charges of breaking into the Mission Church at Amritsar and setting fire to and burning and defiling it, and then opened the case for the Crown. Prosecution witnesses gave evidence, after which the statements of the accused were taken. All of them denied that they were present at the burning of the church. The accused were directed to file a list of witnesses by Tuesday next. The evidence will be taken on Wednesday next.

SERIOUS RIOTING AT BANGALORE

BANGALORE, JULY 15

Last night a serious encounter due to local factious spirit took place between some sepoys of the Sappers and Miners and some Mahomedans. The origin of the riot is still somewhat obscure but the immediate cause of the trouble appears to have been an altercation between some Panchma people in a wedding procession and some Mahomedan bazar men opposite a beer shop. The incident died down for a time, but later in the evening large numbers of Sappers in mufti appeared on the scene and are alleged to have started throwing stones and damaging lamps. An infuriated mob of the Mahomedans collected soon afterwards, and in spite of the presence of some British and Indian officers and garrison military police sticks were freely used and several people were more or less seriously injured. Incidentally there was much looting and an upper storeyed store was completely burnt out before the police and fire brigade could bring the fire under control.

SHOOTING TRIP TRAGEDY

LUCKNOW, JULY 15

What appears to have been a fatal accident is reported from Ajgain in Unao. It seems that Mr. L.A. Donaldson, a printer of the Seventh Day Adventists’ Press in Abbott Road, Lucknow, accompanied by a friend, went to Ajgain for a shoot yesterday morning. About 2 P.M. an employee of the press was sent to Ajgain with some lunch for Mr. Donaldson and his friend but the man returned to Lucknow between 4 and 5 P.M. and reported that he had found the dead body of Mr. Donaldson lying underneath a tree with a wound in the neck. The police have taken charge of the body which will be brought down to Lucknow. Mr. Donaldson was only twenty years old.

KAREN FAMILY MURDERED

RANGOON, JULY 15

From Mergui the report has just arrived of a most dastardly murder in which the victims were Seik Koung, a well-to-do Karen, and the whole of his family. On Monday the body of Seik Koung’s sister-in-law was discovered by a neighbour in the village of Sabapoute Chaung under Seik Koung’s house. It had several dao injuries and this led the police to go to the house. In an inner room was found the dead body of his wife and in an adjoining room the dead bodies of Seik Koung, bound hand and foot, with several dao wounds, and that of his two year old child. Five Burmans have been arrested in connection with the affair and sent up for trial on the charge of dacoity with murder.