BALLADS OF BURMA Anecdotal and Analytical BY OOLAY. PREFACE. MOST of these ditties have already been published in the Rangoon Gazette, and others have appeared in the columns of the Rangoon Times and the Burma Critic. They have been revised, and are now republished in book form at the suggestion of some of my friends, the illustrations being the work of Mr. T. Martin Jones, who has spent many years among the varied types of mankind in Burma. In introducing my book to the British public, I feel that some apology is due for an occasional intrusion of provincial politics, but the unjust treatment of Burma at the hands of the Indian Government has been of so glaring a nature, that I have been unable to avoid alluding to it in a book dealing with current topics in Burma. Burma is rich, and she naturally feels aggrieved that a grossly disproportionate amount of her surplus revenue should be diverted into the coffers of the Indian Government, instead of being spent upon her own improvement. Moreover, India has not hesitated to make use of her satellite as a con- venient dumping ground for her own refuse population. Ceylon, which is merely an island separated from the mainland of India by the Palk Strait, enjoys the dignity of independence. Burma, with an area greater than France, is a dependency of India, although the vast expanse of the Bay