X 



BRITISH BLOODSUCKIIRS 



I WRITE this title with pecuhar pleasure, be- 

 cause it is so nice to be able for once to apply 

 it literally. With its fij^urative use I am already 

 too familiar. In some tropical countries the free- 

 born Britons who are sent out in the Govern- 

 ment employment to protect the natives or the 

 coolies or the negroes, as the case mav be, from 

 their a<»j^ressive brethren, are commonly known to 

 their planter neighbours as '* British bloodsuckers " 

 — apparently because, like most other members of 

 Civil Services elsewhere (except the Turkish), they 

 }^et paid for their services. This use of the phrase 

 is so well known to me, even as applied to myself; 

 that 1 rejoice in beini^ able to emplov it here, with- 

 out political prejudice of any sort, with reference 

 to the habits of the mosquito and tlie horse-tly. 

 Nobody, I suppose, is interested to deny that mos- 

 quitoes and horse-llies do suck blood ; nobody feels 

 the faintest sympathy for the misdeeds of those 

 sanguinary and unpleasant creatures. Now, it is 

 always delightful to lincl a lawful outlet for our 

 evil passions : all the world turns out to hunt a 

 mad dog. I love to tlick the heads off tall thistles 



