Trick or treat!

H.W. Crocker III suggests dressing up as a famous imperialist for Halloween, in order to shock the sensibilities of one’s liberal neighbors. Sir Henry Morgan, for example, or Sir Richard Francis Burton, or maybe Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer:

Class warriors would be affrighted by the aristocratic Templer, who was an Olympic athlete and who as an old man (in a dressing gown and waving a swordstick) chased down a burglar; he breathed his last while nursing a pink gin. Templer was the man who gave us the “hearts and minds” strategy for defeating Communist insurgents, which the British used successfully in Malaya. But it was not all a matter of public uplift and good works. Templer employed hard measures too. He found, for instance, that headhunters made excellent trackers of Communist guerrillas.

A charming article, filled with fascinating thumbnail historical sketches.