Part 5 (1/2)

Edgar, meanwhile, entered his own house. Four policemen broke open his door, and the instant Edgar came out into the pa.s.sage, Policeman Jones shot him dead with a revolver. ”A mere police row,” says Dr. Kuyper.

Jones was arrested next morning, but straightway released upon a bail of 200. The money was not even paid in, but carried over to be deducted monthly from the future salaries of other members of the Johannesburg police force.

Feeling was strong among the other English workmen, many of whom knew Edgar; and this feeling was intensified by the subsequent parody of justice.

3.--_An Ingenious Collusion._

The State Attorney, Mr. s.m.u.ts, informed the Acting British Agent, Mr.

Fraser, that it would be better to bring a charge against Policeman Jones, for ”culpable homicide” than for murder, but that he considered the chance of his conviction by a Boer jury to be very small. The word ”culpable,” says Webster (English Dictionary) is ”applied to acts which have not the gravity of crime.” In this instance, it made Jones' action excusable on the grounds that Edgar struck him with a stick, at the moment of his entering the house.

A journalist, Mr. J.S. Dunn, Editor of _The Critic_, commented upon the action of Dr. Krause, the First Public Prosecutor. Dr. Krause took criminal action against Mr. Dunn for libel, and, before proceeding with the murder trial, appeared as witness in his own case, and swore that he did not consider that Jones had been guilty of murder; he not only made this statement on oath, but called the Second Public Prosecutor who gave similar evidence. Nor was this all. He brought forward the accused himself, as witness to state that the First Public Prosecutor was right in not committing him for murder!

When this ghastly farce had been performed, which is much on a footing with the examination of Esterhazy by Pellieux, the murderer was free to present himself confidently before a Boer jury. Not only was he acquitted, but the presiding judge, k.o.c.k, who had claimed a judges.h.i.+p as a ”son of the soil,” in p.r.o.nouncing judgment added this little speech: ”I hope that this verdict will show the police how to do their duty.”

This amiable conclusion did not seem very re-a.s.suring to the Uitlanders.

At the same time Mr. Kruger suppressed two newspapers, _The Critic_ and _The Star_. (See Blue Book C. 9, 345.)

4.--_The Lombaard Case._

Dr. Kuyper states that Edgar was in the wrong, that Jones acted within his rights, that the Public Prosecutor and the jury fulfilled their duty. As for Lombaard, ”he too,” Dr. Kuyper tells us, ”was a Johannesburg policeman, and like Jones a little rough in his mode of action”.... ”He committed no outrage; the sole reproach attaching to him was that he conducted his search at night, and without a special warrant.” And Dr. Kuyper is very contemptuous of any who may be disposed to question such proceedings.

The truth is, that Lombaard, at the head of sixteen or eighteen police, had taken upon himself, without warrant, to enter the houses of coloured British subjects, men and women, to demand their pa.s.ses; to send them to prison whether right or wrong; to ill-treat and flog them. A mere trifle; scarce worth talking about; they were only people of colour, and Dr. Kuyper has told us his ideas on that subject.

The Edgar case was the origin of the pet.i.tion of the 21,000 Uitlanders to the English Government, to ask the protection it had undertaken to extend to them under the Convention of 1884.

The facts which I have given in _Le Siecle_ of the 29th March, and those I now give here, are sufficient to prove that under Mr. Kruger's Government, police, justice and law do not exist in the Transvaal.

CHAPTER VII.

SECURITY OF INDIVIDUALS ACCORDING TO BOER IDEAS.[11]

1.--_The Amphitheatre Case._

Dr. Kuyper proceeds with charming serenity:

”The affair called the 'Amphitheatre Case' is more ridiculous still.”

And this is his mode of telling it:--

”One day the _South African League_ wished to hold a meeting in the Amphitheatre, and, through Mr. Wybergh, intimated to the State Attorney that they preferred not to be hampered by the presence of the police. In conformity with this wish, the State Attorney telegraphed to the Johannesburg police to keep away. But scarcely had the meeting commenced before the opponents of the League invaded the hall; and the few police stationed at the door were unable to separate the combatants quickly enough. There followed complaints to London ...”

This is Dr. Kuyper's account. I would ask him, in the first place, why he does not give the date of this meeting, which took place on the 14th of January, 1899, one month after the death of Edgar. Secondly, what was the object of this meeting? Dr. Kuyper is silent on these points. He speaks of the step taken by Mr. Wybergh, but he altogether misrepresents it, forgetting that Mr. Wybergh has given his own account of it.

In the serious condition of affairs in Johannesburg at that time, he went to the State Attorney and the Secretary of State, to acquaint them with his intention to hold a meeting in a large building, called the Amphitheatre, generally used as a circus. He informed them that the meeting was convened for three objects: 1. To protest against the arrest of Messrs. T.R. Dodd and C.D. Webb; 2. To protest against the law of public meetings; 3. To obtain signatures to a pet.i.tion praying for the protection of Queen Victoria.