iger.
A Roman Catholic priest was returning to his house after breakfasting
with a planter at Alma, and when passing through some tall "lalang"
grass a tiger suddenly sprang out into the path a few yards in front of
him. The priest, with great presence of mind, suddenly opened his
Chinese umbrella in the face of the tiger; the animal gave a leap round
to one side, and the priest repeated the umbrella movement. The tiger
then gave another leap round to the other side, and the umbrella action
was again performed. This was renewed till the tiger, who evidently was
not hungry, and had taken alarm, made a disappointed growl and bounded
away into the high lalang grass, and the priest hastened on his way
home. On reaching his house he took a cold bath, to brace up his nerves
as he said; but the next day he was confined to his bed, and died a
fortnight after the event, due entirely, it was said, to the shock that
he had sustained.

* * * * *

No. 8

As we have already intimated, the house of correction at Singapore was
under the management and control of the Convict Department; and there
were frequently from thirty to forty Europeans confined in this prison,
chiefly seamen on short sentences for neglect of duty on board ship.

When Sir Robert McClure was commanding a vessel of war[18] in Chinese
waters about 1859, his ship was on the Singapore station for some little
time; and upon his arrival he sent in to the house of correction a very
incorrigible man-of-war's man named John ---- (we will not give his
surname, for he may be yet alive). This man had been several times
punished while the ship was in China, and had been twice sentenced to be
flogged. We heard all about him from the officer of the ship who had
brought him ashore.

[Footnote 18: H.M.S. Esk.]

His sentence was three weeks' imprisonment: the first week in solitary
confinement on bread and water, and congee or rice gruel diet. Upon his
receipt into the prison, after the usual routine, he was placed in one
of the penal cells, and bread and water set before him. Before the cell
door was closed, he looked hard at the chief warder, saying, "Take away
that filth; I won't eat it." The chief warder reported to the
Superintendent that the man in the cells was a dangerous-looking
character, and he was afraid we should have trouble with him, for he had
never seen a man with such a hang-dog look. The morning of the second
day he had