His practice was to drop in to breakfast and consume vast quantities of jam, to the detriment of his poor digestion, as an aid to the delivery of wise discourse on men and things. Without him the task of governing Mandalay, difficult at the best, would have been still more arduous. Our early sway was of a patriarchal type. The theory that the penalty should be made to fit the offence was adopted by an ingenious magistrate who knew his Burman. An instance recurs to me worthy of Shahpesh, the Persian. Some gamblers were brought up for judgment. “So you like cards. Will you play a game with me?” said the magistrate genially. “Please draw three cards.” Two aces and a two were shown. “What a lucky man! Take four stripes.” The next man drew two kings and a five. “Your luck is not so good. Receive twenty-five stripes.” And so on, to the delight of the public, and, we may hope, of the players. Another accused in the same case, hung about with cards and dice and other instruments of gaming, was paraded through the streets with his face to the tail of the pony on which he sat. Colonel Sladen had the royal temperament, and was prepared to set right all the wrongs done by his predecessor. In pursuance of this policy he restored to the Yenangyaung Mingyi and the Pintha Mintha respectively all their property which had been confiscated by the King. As soon as these orders came to his notice, Mr. Bernard imperatively forbade any further similar restitutions, rightly holding it impossible to investigate the acts of the Burmese Government in exercise of its sovereign powers. The Yenangyaung Mingyi, then verging on ninety, was a valued Minister of King Mindôn, and had been wounded in the Myingun Prince’s rebellion. On that occasion, as I heard from the lips of an eyewitness, King Mindôn was attacked by his disloyal son in a summer palace near Mandalay Hill, and escaped borne on the back of a faithful attendant. The Mingyi had fallen into disgrace with King Thebaw, doubtless because he was father of the Kyimyin Mipaya,[97] one of Mindôn Min’s lesser wives, who had borne the King a son, the Pyinmana Mintha.[98] In the massacre of 1879 this child’s life was spared, probably on account of his extreme youth; but he and his mother and her family all remained objects of suspicion, and were kept in confinement by the Burmese Government. Soon after our arrival the boy was discovered, and sent to India and educated at an English school. After 1905 he returned to Burma and settled in Rangoon, where he still lives on excellent terms with our officers. Restored to favour and fortune, the Mingyi often came to see me, walking sturdily in spite of his years, and usually accompanied by two small sons of about eight or nine. The Pintha Mintha was the brother of Yanaung Maung Tôk,[99] already mentioned as the roystering companion of King Thebaw. These two titular Princes were sons of another Yenangyaung Mingyi, of romantic history.