3-078-146 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches of the Military Police of Burmah: wrestling-match in camp, 1890. 'Some account of the organisation of this useful force,...numbering about fifteen thousand men enlisted in Upper India from the districts and classes of the population which supply the best soldiers of the Indian Native Army, was given in our publication of May 3...It forms nineteen battalions, each with two or three British officers, stationed in all the administrative districts of Upper Burmah, and guarding the frontiers and the railway that is being constructed. The men are armed and equipped like the infantry regiments of the Indian Army, and a portion of each battalion are trained to act as mounted infantry. Every outpost is garrisoned by the Military Police, who have proved as efficient as any native soldiers in the pursuit of "Dacoits" or bands of robbers, in attacking the villages of hostile tribes where Dacoits were harboured, and in other services of local warfare. The native officers and non-commissioned officers are men of intelligence and well instructed; [Our] Sketch represents the men in camp diverting themselves with a wrestling - match. The Burmese Civil Police, formed of natives of Burmah, is an entirely separate force'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.