The South-African crisis - pagina 20

THE SOUTH-AFRICAN

IG

which the employment of interpreters

lation of evidence

They

involved.

ousted from

felt

own country and public life. Even when

exiled in their

participation in

all

Parliament was instituted prevailed

CEISIS.

in

1852 the same regime

and the act of April

3^^!.

"that

stipulated

debates shall be conducted in the English language."

all

was only

It

in

May

1882 that article 2 of the act of

conceded to the colonists the use of Dutch,

25*^^-

To

i)

the primary injustice was soon added an interminable list

der

of other grievances.

Kemp,

laid a

Boers of having tortured

woman,

An

charge at Downing-Street against the ill

treated their slaves

them and even assasinated it

was

Van

English missionary, Dr.

alleged,

—

several.

of having

A

Boer

had even scalded a negro to

death in boiling water. The Secretary for the Colonies ordered an inquiry.

A Court

w^ent on circuit through

more than a thousand witnesses were heard, and 58 Boers were summoned on the most the whole country;

dishonourable incriminations. After

judges those

on March

who were

9^1^

all this to-do,

1816 were obliged to acquit

the all

accused of murder or of torture, and

was proved that the negro who was said to have been alive, on coming in one day with frozen feet, simply in order to thaw them, had them put by his mistress in a foot-bath which was too hot. This general acquittal was certainty satisfactory for the Boers, but it

boiled

such humiliation before their slaves could not sweeten the cup of bitterness of which they had drunk.

We 1)

come now

to the enfranchisement of the slaves

In the courts of justice the use of Dutch was not restored until 1884.

See act of July

23th.. no. 21; art. 1st.

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