Slavery Abolished

By order of His Majesty Maharajadhiraja Tribhubana Bir Bikram Jung Bahadur Shah Bahadur Shumshere Jung (Maharaja of Nepal) all slavery within the Kingdom is to cease at an early date soon to be fixed.

In a speech lasting two hours (the speech took place on Dec. 3 but was telegraphed from India only last week), the Maharaja said that the Government would assist in the suppression of slavery by buying slaves from those owners who were inclined to sell and immediately liberating them. He reminded his people, however, that complete elim- ination of the traffic would have to be effected at an early date. The sum of about $425,000 had been allotted by the Government, he said, for the purpose of buying slaves.* The Maharaja quoted a painful instance of slavery: "A mother, a slave, had given birth to seven children, and her master, despite her protests and tearful prayers, had already disposed of one daughter and four sons by sale. The woman, in her petition, wrote that the bitter laments of her children at thus being forced to separate from their mother sent a pang through her heart more acute than any she had ever suffered. "When, to her dismay, the hard-hearted master arranged to take away the baby slave that still was suckling at her breast, her endurance was broken down completely. She supplicated and prayed, as parents pray, as you and I pray, to the gods on high when the dearest of our children lies in the clutches of grim death--to her master, arbiter of her destiny and, to her, as omnipotent in this crisis as fell Death himself, but all to no purpose. "His adamant heart did not melt. The master completed the transaction." Nepal is about the size of Florida, contains about 5,500,000 people and is an entirely independent country on the north frontier of the Indian Empire. The Maharaja is not a despot, as has been circulated in the daily press. The Government is in the hands of a military oligarchy, but all political power is in the hands of a Prime Minister and that office appears to be hereditary in the family of His Highness Maharaja Sir Chandra Shumshere Jung, Bahadur Rana, the present Premier. Nepal is famed as the home of the equally famed Gurkha soldiers, said to be the greatest fighters in the world. They helped the British during the Indian mutiny (1857) and again in the World War, when they fought side by side with the Canadian Highlanders and the British Guards. A feature of their equipment was the kukri--a small double-edged, curved knife. According to tradition, the kukri must be drawn only to be wet with human blood. Thus, when the Gurkhas drew their kukris to show them to their British comrades, they always nicked themselves and allowed a few drops of blood to drip on to the knife before returning it to its scabbard.

*In Nepal, there are 51,419 slaves and 15,719 slave-owners.