Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 June 1901 — 127 YEARS AGO. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

127 YEARS AGO.

King George 111. had reached the age of 36, and had reign,ed fourteen years, when Lord North, by unanimous consent of the house of commons, presented the Boston port bill for its consideration. This atrocious act was the return lightning stroke of the ministry for the blow rebellious Boston had dealt when it emptied the East India Company’s tea into the harbor. No event in the series of causes that led to the revolution was so determinative of an ultimate resort to arms as was this brutal measure. Singular, indeed, at the first blush, it would seem, that such a vindictive and utterly unstatesmanlike measure, designed as it was to rivet the collar of political servitude upon the necks of a great people. But the average Englishman did not understand the American-colonial problem. His notion of the Americans was that they were an inferior race, mostly wild Indians and negro slaves, while the relation between them and the English at home was substantially that of servant and master. “Why,” said Pitt, with reference to this state of feeling, the revenue measures, and particularly “even the chimney-sweeps and bootblacks in the streets of London talk about ‘our subjects’ in America!” The resistance of the Americans to the audacious act of the Boston “hypocrites, traitors, rebels and villains”— such were the mild terms applied to

The soldiers of Great Britain seem destined to get their fill of bloodshed before the halo of peace again settles over these perturbed little isles. The Mad Mullah, most fanatic of India’s tribesmen, is on the warpath, arming countless hordes against the “mother country,’’ and instilling into them the hatred of the foe and disregard of death the meaning of which the British soldiers well know. Mullah’s plan is to form an alliance with the Mljertain tribe, which will place 80,000 mem at his disposal. A feint in the direction of Ber will, it is thought, make it necessary for the British to enter the Mijertaln country. Terrible fighting will ensue. As the natives are well equipped with rifles and ammunition, and the lines of communication with the British may at any moment be broken. The heat in India at present is intense, and It is telling on the members of the British expedition.