only mean that the victim was either “ a very bad lot ”
or of a very sensitive disposition. In the one case help
might be withheld ; in the other it is neither sought nor
accepted.
It would be difficult for even the most fanatic opponent
of Mr. Gladstone to imagine the deep, heartfelt,
scornful detestation of his very name among many old
British residents of this Republic. It is now but a
decade since the Boer war—a war largely brought about
by the arrogance and lost by the imbecility of many
to whom British interests were then confided. I
constantly met men who had risked life, fortune, and
every hope in the cause of their old country, and who
in the darkest day were prepared to go on, who, badly
led, repined not, badly defeated were yet not beaten,
but who have never forgiven what they call the infamy
of the Gladstone surrender. I have found old English
settlers, who took part and were ruined in the war,
reviling the very name of their. country ; others who
professing detestation of the Boers would yet help them
—so they say—'to fight against any renewed attempt at
British supremacy ; and all this not partial, not isolated,
hut common talk, which every traveller may hear who
cares to mix with the people and listen to their views.
I found it useless to argue ; I had not the facts for
defence. I recalled the old sugar-planting days of
Malacca more than twenty years before, when my
Scotch friends who managed the estates, and who were
as a rule Tory and Jacobite to the bone, would angrily
tell me they would travel. twenty miles to see John
Bright hanged.
The Kafir represents the labouring class of the Transvaal.
Wherever manual unskilled work is required it
is the Kafir who supplies it. He is the bricklayer’s
labourer, the porter, the miner, the farm hand, the
shepherd, thè scavenger, and even the common policeman.
He promenades Pretoria in the most wonderful
attire, for in the large towns he is not allowed to indulge
in his primitive costume. His greatest glory is in the
possession of an old soldier’s tunic—numbers of which
are imported from England for the Kafir trade; his
most economic suit is a sack, through the bottom of
which he makes three holes for the insertion of his
head and arms. In the towns he is not allowed to
N a t ive P oliceman.
Walk upon the paths, but must keep to the roads, and
he is also required to retire from the streets and public
thoroughfares when the Kafir bell is rung about 9 p .m .
Our black brother may be despised, but the manual
labour of the Transvaal at present depends upon him,
and his labour is cheap and easily trained. His average
wage is ten shillings per week and his % mealie” (ground