About 1891 a tiger began levying taxes on the little town of Shwegyin (Shwayjeen), in Lower Burma, where the Shwegyin river joins the big Sittang. The people were used to leopards, but tigers had ceased from troubling them so long that, as one said, “you might as well try to persuade us that the dead had arisen as that tigers had come back.” As there had always been tigers in the adjoining mountains, and the forest spread over the country, and touched the town on every side but where the rivers ran, this prejudice would have been surprising, if it had not been so very human. It is hard to persuade men of what they do not like. The people of Shwegyin were not to be talked out of their comfortable security. No words could persuade them to look out for tiger, but the deeds of the beast itself gradually did.
Though tigers and leopards alike are earnest tariff reformers, their schedules differ in details, [75] ]and as week succeeded week, and the dogs, so dear to leopards, were steadily neglected, and the invisible enemy, hovering around the herds coming home carelessly, anyhow, in the twilight, took calves and cows and bullocks, as they chanced to stray and offer themselves, in a style no Burman leopard ever tries, its capacity for great destruction was allowed to prove its greatness, and the most prejudiced of the local elders was at last candid enough to say, “I fear I may have to admit it to be a tiger when it is dead and I see it.”
At a meeting of the Municipal Committee the president mentioned, adding the losses reported, that the depredations in three months amounted to more than half a year’s taxes on the town. Like other oppressors, it destroyed a great deal more than it needed.
The members groaned in chorus, especially those who had cattle. But one who had no such possessions remained cheerful and broke the silence, saying, “It will die some day.”
A fellow-member who had had losses glared at the speaker, who was remarkably obese, and said, “If the tiger only knew how much better eating some fat men in our town would make, he might be persuaded to change his diet. I wish he would.”
[76] ]“I never go out at night,” said the obese one, hastily, growing grave, whereat the others laughed, and, recovering his composure, he continued: “Tigers come and tigers go, but the taxes go on for ever. When one official goes, another comes.” Receiving the expected murmur of applause, he added, “That’s what I was going to say.”
It should perhaps be remarked that officials in Burma are proverbially classed with thieves and similar afflictions. We must remember that the civilisation of Burma is older than that of England, and should not be angry when the people there smile at those of us who are simple enough to suppose ourselves anything better than an expensive nuisance.
“Of two equal taxes,” a Socratic member asked, “which do you feel the more—the first you pay, or the second?”
“The second.”
“And the second or the third?”