Show Civilization and Religion in Madagascar Mada-gascar The French troops In Madagascar continue to advance slowly Indeed hampered by Impassable roads and decimated by the fever but they advance ad-vance and hope to possess themselves of the capital during tho winter The Queen and her Ministers are reported to have fled giving orders to burn Antananarivo An-tananarivo if the city cannot be defended de-fended against the French Eugen Wolff the correspondent of tho Berlin Tageblatt reports that the Prime Minister Min-ister punishes most barbarously all desertions from the army The deserters desert-ers are burned alive Yet there Is a large party of younger Hovas who wish to submit to the French The troops are not very enthusiastic and their organization or-ganization Is rather primitive The Courier de Madagascar Tamatavo says saysThe Hova soldier or Mlaramlla must buy his own uniform and must he satisfied with one loose gown In all kinds of weather Beside this ho must provide a broad leather belt and a small tent The Queen provides the gun bayonet ammunition pouch and cartridges Each soldier Is provided with an old tomato can or paintpot to which a handle has been fixed This part of the outfit was thought worthy of a special proclamation which was read by the ofllcers to the soldiers It runs as follows 0 you my hundred thousand men you are now fitted out with the things most necessary to civilized troops things which your ancestors did not possess when they followed the renowned re-nowned Sadlka of Andrlanixnpomlmer Ina You harvest today the benefits of that civilization which Our Iloyal Father and Mother Introduced with the help of the London Missionary society To lighten your burden and to render you more able to rush upon the enemy I have decreed that It is unnecessary to burden you with provision which you will find anywhere Wherever tho Government has gathered supplies of rice you will receive a share In other parts the people whom you are to defend de-fend against the yoke of the foreigner will give you cattle In places where no provisions are to be found I count upon your intelligence to supply what you need 0 you my hundred thousand thou-sand mcn supplied with this pot you can not let victory escape you Run fly to the frontier your Queen will hear of your deeds How small says the Tageblatt Berlin Ber-lin does the great Napoleon appear 11 i comparison to this Hova queen He did not know how to keep his army alive upon tho Icy fields of Russia Yet the matter Is very simple as this choc olatecolored majesty now proves All you have to do Is to appeal to the Intelligence In-telligence of your hungry soldiers European commissariat department have not yet learned to supply thel troops In this simple manner The Wcstllche Post St Louis explains ex-plains the religious position of the Madagese as follows French American and English missIonaries mis-sIonaries have done their best to convert con-vert the lIova but without success They remain without faith The emissaries emis-saries of the London Mission society have succeeded In Introducing Protestantism Protest-antism but only nominally They un derstood that the queen had to bo won and pointed out to her that she If she adopted the Protestant faith would become the religious head of her people as Queen Victoria Is the religious head of the English The queen was nattered nat-tered She saw that she could not obtain ob-tain a similar position In the Roman Catholic church and she became a convert con-vert to Protestantism The majority of the people followed her example The missionaries however aimed chiefly to counteract French Influence The Mad agese are as much opposed to all religious re-ligious ideas as ever The New York World therefore shows that It does not understand the situation If It raises Christian lamentations because Catholicism Is getting the best of ProtestniMsm In Madagascar I The paper points out that all concessions I conces-sions and privileges obtained by Englishmen En-glishmen and Americans will be worth about as much as that possessed by Consul Waller when the French had conqdered Madagascar That Is to say they will not be worth the paper they are written on On the other hand the mineral wealth of Madagascar Madagas-car will do 1111 much for that country fts gold has done for the Transvaal Translated for the Literary Digest fmnslated |