The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 18, 1898, Page 19

L, SUND AY, CEMBER 18, 1898. 19 KIPLING AS A SCHOOLBOY AND THE PRANKS HE PLAYED One of His Classmates Tells Amusing Incidents of the Early Daus of the Great Author and How He 'urk and que stories s if I was I knew the 11 under their ford, Dunsterville and Kipling was “Beetle,” him " Dun- hat year I joined “Westward Northam, North hich had been in existence for ! igned under with Kip. that 1 spe study was im- occupied by and Kipling. to in the \l‘ul"s Kipling app: In the fi almost in the sight of his e other hand Kip- means a “sweat.” to be seen poring was seld . Dottom. He dld not zes that came in his 10t even in due course = of sub-prefect, with him the well- I in English literature. Only he did seem to be able to solve a problem in tep minutes over which an- her boy might have labored for an He was chiefly noticeable In his ell eves for a keen wit and f language that could only be ed by depriving him of his &chool fell 0\\( a flow Beetle and McTurk.” I xddl‘ of his school life i nto a strong tie of friend: \\uh two other boys, in many ects of his own lr-mperamv‘-n[. The trio see 1 to have aims of their own a; t from the rest of the college, leading a kind of Bohemian existence, and am g themselves by tilts at the were, in which encounters s frequentl; came off victorious, as ed in the “Stalky” stories. At the wh i g and his two chums igned to a room or up” to the They first prevailing of all painted a wonderful stork dado round their room; then they purchased spoutless tea- and hung them a number of old plate pots and Japanese fan walls, They cal it very .and_for day the whole wondered. rvice Colleg most E placing a ass discipline *publi part of the ou hands of the he ad maintenance of order in the 141- cor- mitories or sleeping-rooms—one prefect having charge of perhaps a dozen or fifteen boys. Telling Stories at Night. Now it happens that the prefect of the dormitory in which Rudyard hlp- ling slept was a great admirer of t thousand and one stories of the Ara- bian ghts, and conceived the idea that it would conduce to his early re- pose if he compelled each of the boys in his room to tell stories in turn. The jdea was at once put into practice, nd the boys told such stories of sport, love and ariwmure as the fertility of their brains brought forth; but it became quickly apparent that Kipling so far d the others in that talent that fect insisted upon his telling gtories out of his turn, the result of which practice would generally be somewhat as follows: The light having been extinguished, of the prefect would be heard: then, Gigs, a yarn.” ?: 4 an abbreviation for gig name conferred upon choo! fellows on ac- traordinarily large spe he wore. would come no response from n the corner. i You hear? A yarn. S no answer : 3 W,J\ here, Gigs, if you don’t wake - “p,\n expostulating voice from under- neath the clothing—“Oh, what is it?” it’s not my “I don’t care if it isn't— hich there would per- mfi.]lm\ a pause of five minutes, when the voice of the prefect would be heard again, “All right, Gigs, you b » imme. ately succeeded by the « of a boot in the neighborhood of ing’s bed, to be followed by the fed sound of a piece of soap strik- n Kipling, by this time “What is it? A yarn, a yarn I don’t know any. From the prefect: “Oh, ves, you do; but anyway I'll give you a skeleton. . upon a time there was a man who to sea, killed the captain, turned , got wrecked on an island, where yught a battle against a lot of sav- , married the chief’s daughter, dled, anc. lived happily ever afterward. Now go on.” With a grunt of dissatisfaction Kip- ling would thereupon begin, shortly, however, making the prefect the villain of the story and placing him in such Began His Career, absurd situations that the whole dormi tory would be shouting with laughte: and the noise of : shoes upon the stairs would that the house master was on b to see into the nocturnal d 1 As a College Editor For two years Iiur‘x\"m} Kipling oc- period many articles from his E the pages of that little journal was _entirely honorary b which, howe on the :oml 1 and head mas- ter of the lu]lx‘ E rt lastic duties, held (h- man of the local board the nature of -n v ship, with per editor of uence v of crude wer to boar e head m: I\hr paid no atten- Then the editor, prob- some of Kipling’s ze paper, entered into with him, that for 0 a week the latter his best to goad the head master into the indl: tort, A Newspaper Contest With Head Master, It was not long, therefore, before d nunciator appeared in the ver, treating of the board's local d age scheme in such poignant, term that everybody began matter, and the head master le xl lw take up his pen in ary duel thus com- the all uncon us master anc hH pupil, that afforded those who were in the secret a weekly fund of amusement. entually the head master resigned ir, but whether he discovered lity of his brilliant anta 10t known. Had he done so, scretion of a re- to talk about the was comp promotion at length found themselves bre into daily contact with this m and having duly made note uf his supreme aversion, they proceec to =umumh— lL after the wn fA\hlnn 2 to be noticed that were putting on 2 ster in ques- tion noticed also, but concerning which he contented himself with scornful re- marks, until a shilling bottle of ov ring perfume was the direct c ion of wrath, of the SS s being thrown wide open er morning, and of some- invectives being hurled s' heads this emphatic rebuff Kip- chums continued their ef- room winc notice to the effect that patent leather shoes, among other enumerated ‘‘fop- articles of dress, were henceforth strictly prohibited. As if in despair at the sweeping nature of this edict the hnrlm»z immediately reverted to 1 the next Sunday ch llover as if a qum best clothes over h oniy their sho: hat the c Sv er inspection, however, being surmise was incorrect, the trio’s dis- for once, a 1t direction, 1\ ru un\'fl“nd'd a vigorous ap- brush, and unsuspect- ‘them to go on their v to church. It was not long after the service had commenc: ed before every one in the ling trio became con- scious of a most pungent and sicken- ing odor of blacking, the classical mas- - who sat next to Kipling being the first, of course, to sniff the air with \\vah\n But as the church warmed up the smell became s altogether un- .arable t the classical master, cast- ook of supreme disgust upon the 1 devout and apparently ent youths at his side, hur- frog his seat and sought another part of the church. Then, the other boys near by MOST FANATICAL CHARGE THE WILD SOUDAN EVER oAW Hordes of Shouting Dervishes Walked Right Up to Cer- - tain Death Shouting for Their Prophet and EW now YORK, Dec. 13.—There is visiting relatives in this city a middle-aged man who lately came from the Soudan, where he took part in the an- nihilation of the Mahdl's army at Omd ~man on September 2 Jast. He knows what wild fighting is as he saw six years’ service on the plains against the Indians before he El Koran. ‘We had seen enough for that at Firket, Atbara and other places, but then their chances were better; they had some show, could hit back as it were. But it wasn’t that way at Omdurman. At Atbara we were the attacking party and they could lie behind their zerebas and shoot until we broke in and routed them up at the point of thg bayonet, when they used their spears and swords as well as they could; a few that were “It Was Courage Gone Mad; a Hundred Hands and More Bore on the Flag; Then Down It Went With Not a Hand Left to Raise It, and the Field Was Carpeted With the Dead. The Like of That Charge Was Never Seen Before, Not Even in the Soudan.” there is a probability that young Kip- ling would have been painfully made aware of the fact, as the cane and the birch are still important factors in English “public” school discipline. " When a looking glass first engages the serious attention of a youth, a somewhat ludicrous devotion to the wardrobe is often the result. In that respect, Kipling and his two particular chums inclined to ward the Bohemian. until they perceived in the opposite treme a chance to enact a good part, which, for the time being, afforded their companions no little amusement. At the United Service College it hap- pened that there was a certain classical master who had developed a profound aversion to anything approaching fop- pishness, and to whom fancy waist- coats, sporting scarfpins and silk hand- kerchiefs were an abomination second only to what was termed the “modern’ side of the school. Having Sport With the Master. To such an extent did this master carry his discrimination in the matter of clothes that those attending his classes or coming more particularly un- der his jurisdiction, who evinced the least tendency to “'style” were promptly made the butts of his most withering sarcasm, and were even occasionally peremptorily ordered not to appear again in his presence wearing conspicu- ously offensive garments. Now Kipling and his two chums in the course of forts to approach the extreme height of fashion, borrowing such likely gar- ments as they did not themselves pos- sess, and choosing Sunday as the day on which to make a brave display of their personal adornments, for the three sat close to the classical master in church. Again, for a time, the mas- ter confined himself to sneering re- marks; but three pairs of light, cloth- topped patent leather shoes brought the matter to a climax On the particular Sunday when the shoes were first worn, the -classical master quic spied them out, and having beckoned the three youths be- fore him, pointed to the objectionable articles and desired to be informed as to their precise nature. “Which things, sir?” asked Kipling, following with his gaze the direction indicated by the classical master’s fore- finger, and wonderingly surveying the floor as if he expected to behold some strange insects crawling there. “Which things. sir? “Those things,” emphatically replied the master, pointing to Kipling’s feet. Iy feet, sir?” asked Kipling, as if he were still in doubt as to the master’s exact meaning. “No, the vile things you've got on them,” angrily explained the former. “Go and take them off at once. At once! D’'you understand me?” ‘Whereupon the Kipling trio divested themselves: of their beautiful shoes, and the classical master posted a house crammed their handkerchiefs into their mouths to suppress explosions of laugh- ter, a merry twinkle beamed out through Gig's enormous spectacles. It was generally thought that the three would meet with a swift and terrible punishment; but the classical master, for some reason, decided to hold his peace, and thereafter permitted the edict regarding foppishness to fall into abeyanc \ MICHAEL GIFFORD WHITE. A member of General Merritt's party says that while the bearing of the Germans there left much to be desired at first, a markedly more cordial feel- ing grew up as the American army and navy demonstrated their capabili- ti It appears that a German offi- cial called upon General Merritt after the capture of Manila, complimented hi..1 upon the appearance of his troops. and remarked: *“I notice you have many Germans among them.” By this the German official intimated that the infusion of German blood explained the efficiency of the American soldiers. General Merritt, it is added. replied jestingly: “We makeea citizen of a German in three years and we make a soldier of him in five vears.” —_——— French counts have nine equal pearls in their coronets, while the British Baron is entitled to a coronet @8 four big pearls. went back and enlisted in the British army. He gives the following graphic ac- count of the first part of t. battie of Omdurman: “I never saw anything like it and I've seen some fighting in my time out West on the plains before I went back to her Majesty’s service. Nor you never saw anything like it and you have seen some service, too. Nor none of you. Nor nobody that wasn’t there at the time. “There never was anything like it, at least in our time. “They talk about the Old Guard at Waterloo. They were brave men, all right and good enough, and stood their ground and the last man died where he stood. They could have shown ‘the white' if they had wanted to, but they didn’t want to. They were game to the death. But they could give as good as they got, barring numbers, and they were hemmed in and circled about so y couldn’t run; none braver than they were. “But these Dervishes beat all. We knew the ‘beggars’ (Tommy Atkins’ modification of Baggaras, who consti- tuted a large part of the Mahdi’s fight- ing force) could fight, and would fight. left ran away, but a lot found sure death where thev stood. “But at Omdurman it was all dif- ferent. They came right on to certain death, walking, as it were, over their own dead bodies, and knowing they couldn’t help themselves. “Order! Not much. No more than one would see in a herd of cattle, mov- ing across the plains, but there was a certain show of fixed resoive and regu- lar purpose that made one feel queer when he knew that they were coming at him. Not that we were scared. Not a bit of it. We could have no doubt of the result. We knew our strength. We knew what we could do and we knew what they couldn’t do. That was the main thing. We knew that they had a long way to come over good open ground well under the range of our Maxims and rifles, to say nothing of our field batteries, which were in good positions and all ready, while they, poor ‘beggars,” could do us little hurt until they got right up to close quarters, if they ever did, as they had few guns that would carry any distance and most of them had only spears and swords. ““What were they counting on? Well, I can’t say, unless it was on their num- bers. There was a lot of them, too, but not enough for the work that they had cut out for themselves—poor ‘beggars.’ They could not have dreamed of what they were running up against. “About the battle? Well, maybe I haven't said much about the battle; that is the rest of it, but I've told you something about the first of .it. What came afterward was a kind of finish up, as it were. Fighting done after- ward? Yes! Plenty of it, but nothing like that ‘first charge.’ I'll never for- get that sight in all my living days. It can hardly be called a fight. Too one- sided, but there was lots of gun firing on our side and lots of dead and wound- ed on the other. Why, the field in front of our center was literally carpeted with white, mixed all up with black, where the bare arms and legs of the poor ‘beggars’ showed out, and here and there a horse or two. Some of them, chiefs, sheiks and emirs, they call them, rode on horseback. It was a sight to last one man all the rest of his life. “How many killed? Well, to speak by the card, I should say just all of them. That is, all that were in the way of it. All that started across that open space toward our lines. I didmn't see any going back. How many? I don’t just know. I never counted them. I don’t suppose anybody else did very closely. Just guessed at the number. The papers will tell you what the guess was, I just tell you what I know. All of them were killed. Five, seven or ten thousand; just as many as started. All of them killed, that is, sooner or later. Of course, a good many were just wounded at first, but they were all dead men before the thing was over. You don't need fleld hospitals for those ‘beggars.” They never quit till they are dead. So you see the enemy's loss is made up of two items—Xkilled and pris- oners, and these last are not so many. The Sirdar knows hi business. “The battle was on a Friday, Well, on Wednesday night we were camped near the river, about twelve miles below Om- durman. A heavy storm came up with much thunder and lightning and the rain just poured dowyn. In the midst of it all at daybreAk we struck our tents and started on the march again. Every man of us was wet through and through. We had had yo rest, not a bit of sleep, and were pretty well worn out, though we had full gtomachs and plenty more within easy reach. The whole army, about 28,000 men, was well under way by 5 o'clock. The march- ing was heavy sure enough. The mud was so “sticky” that when wou lifted your foot a great mass of it hung on and made you step short. We began to feel better, though, when just before noon the sun came out, and after go- ing a short distance farther we went into camp just above the little old town of Kerreri, about six miles from Om- durman, where the battle was fought the rext day. We halted about half past 1 o'clock in the afternoon, Thurs- day, September 1. ““Our line extended in a kind of a half circle, about two and a half miles, with both ends resting on the river. “The position was a good one. The ground was a lttle high and sloped easily away to the west, offering no cover to an enemy except here and there a slight depression, a few feet below the general surface, as far as the hills, the nearest of which, Jebel Surgham, lay a little to the southwest about a mile and a quarter distant. A little farther away, directly to the west and opposite our center, ran a range of hills parallel to the river for some three or four miles. “‘On our extreme left next to the river and nearest the city, which was in plain sight, was our artillery and the Brit- ish brigade, with the Twenty-first Lan- cers in the rear of their right. Next in the circle came the ‘Fuzzy Wuzzies,” or the Soudanese, our black brothers in arms. Fighters, too, they were. Then next and extending on around to the river again were the ‘Gippies,’ or the Egyptian division, as they are of- ficially called. The supply boats were in the river behind us, and the gun- boats out in the stream, near our left. ‘We had early supper and early to bed. The night went off quite quietly and we had a good rest. At early dawn, say 3:30 a. m., we were roused and stood to arms. The cavalry went out to take a look about, and we be- gan breaking the zereba in places to march through. Soon one of the gun. boats fired a shell into the city, and just after the cavalry came galloping back and we knew the thing was about on; and so it was. Just after 6 o’clock we heard a mighty noise of more yell- ing, shouting and singing, and soon we caught sieht of them without num- ber, first to the right of Jebel Surgham and then to the left, lapping all around our front. Some few were on horse- back, but the great mass were on foot. They carried a number of flags on long poles, which they kept waving as they advanced. “When they were within about 1900 yards the artillery began on them, and many a well directed shell left a batch of them to mark where it burst. When they had gotten within 1200 yards we began with our rifles and then the Maxims, shortening the range sights as they came. They did little firing, but just kept coming. They were soon within short range and were just mowed down, but those that fell were not missed, the mass was so dense. I did not see much of what went on ex- cept just In front of me. That spec- tacle just held my sight bound to it. “Closer and closer, ever growing fewer and few, they came. “Just before us was one specially at- tractive group. A young black man, evidently a chief, mounted on a splen- did dark bay, rode in the front of the main mass, waving a sword in his hand and shouting ‘Allah Akbar,’ which means God is great. On his left an old white bearded fellow kept pace with the horse, carrying a large white flag, which he kept waving as he shouted. With them, beside and be- hind, pressed the throng of white tur- bans and black faces, even yet more than you could reckon, but dropping by scores at every step. Well, they brought that flag right up to within 300 yards of our line. A hundred hands and more had had it, and there it went down, but onlv when there was no hand left to hold it up. All had zone down. The field was carpeted, indeed, with the dead. “The like of the ‘last charge’ was 32\'91’ seen before, not even in the Sou- an.” ‘The so-calied portraits of Uncle Sam are legion, but with few exceptions they are little better than caricatures and not in the least typical of the far- seeing, shrewd but benevolent and genial old man of the original concep- tion. What is said to be the original of this type of portrait was painted in 1816 by the artist Probasco, of whom little or nothing further is known. The picture is a fine oil painting, and is at present in the hands of the heirs of the late Judge Lawrence of Lowell, Mass., who reside about fifty miles west of Toledo, Ohio. The portrait shows the familiar blue coat with brass buttons, the red-and- white shirt, the beaver hat with the stars and stripes on the band. —— g ‘Western Australia has an act in force prohibiting the landing of any one who cannot write out a given passage in Eng- i