Among the more interesting contributions of rather a dull Indian
mail, is a copy of the Straits Times, a Singapore journal, which throws out a challenge of Governor Brooke's proceedings at Sarawak, that ought to be effectively answered. According to the journalist, Sir James Brooke, the reputed pioneer of Christian civilization, reposes undue trust in Datoo Patinghi, a dealer in Dyak heads, who bas local ends of his own to serve. Under the name of an expedition against pirates, this man has induced the English to he his instruments for a hostile attack on the residents of the Lipat river—a place which ought to be a trading depot; and under his guidance the English have been made accomplices to acts of murderous treachery. Men, among them traders, were burned, and the heads were carried off as trophies. Villages and paddy-fields were destroyed. These outrages were not perpe- trated in the presence of Rajah Brooke, whose humane in- tentions and high character are not disputed ; but appearances
mist have made the races of Borneo believe that the attacks had his sanction and countenance. But while he wanders forth like Amadis of Gaul or Sir Walter Raleigh, seeking adventures, his Olen little state of Sarawak is exposed to internal disorders for want of an effective police ; and the English fleet, which ought to be coursing the -seas, is collected about' Lalman to defend the domains of the Rajah from foreign aggression. Ministers talk coolly of abandoning great Colonial provinces as useless, and put into the Estimates, of course as nationally useful, Sir James Brooke's yacht-station I
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