Froudacity; West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Part 2

He would have us believe that Mr. Francis Damian, the Mayor of Port of Spain, and one of the wealthiest of the native inhabitants of Trinidad, a man who has retired from an honourable and lucrative legal practice, and devotes his time, his talents, and his money to the service of his native country; that Mr. Robert Guppy, the venerable and venerated Mayor of San Fernando, with his weight of years and his sufficing competence, and with his long record of self-denying services to the public; that Mr. George Goodwille, one of the most successful merchants in the Colonies; that Mr. Conrad [75] F. Stollmeyer, a gentleman retired, in the evening of his days, on his well-earned ample means, are open to the above sordid accusation. In short, that those and such-like individuals who, on account of their private resources and mental capabilities, as well as the public influence resulting therefrom, are, by the sheer logic of circ.u.mstances, forced to be at the head of public movements, are actuated by a craving for the few hundred pounds a year for which there is such a scramble at Downing Street among the future official grandees of the West Indies! But granting that this allegation of Mr. Froude's was not as baseless as we have shown it to be, and that the leaders of the Reform agitation were impelled by the desire which our author seeks to discredit them with, what then? Have they who have borne the heat and the burden of the day in making the Colonies what they are no right to the enjoyment of the fruits of their labours? The local knowledge, the confidence and respect of the population, which such men enjoy, and can wield for good or evil in the community, are these matters of small account in the efficient government of the Colony? Our author, in [76] specifying the immunities of his ideal Governor, who is also ours, recommends, amongst other things, that His Excellency should be allowed to choose his own advisers. By this Mr. Froude certainly does not mean that the advisers so chosen must be all pure-blooded Englishmen who have rushed from the dest.i.tution of home to batten on the cheaply obtained flesh-pots of the Colonies.

At any rate, whatever political fate Mr. Froude may desire for the Colonies in general, and for Trinidad in particular, it is nevertheless unquestionable that he and the scheme that he may have for our future governance, in this year of grace 1888, have both come into view entirely out of season. The spirit of the times has rendered impossible any further toleration of the arrogance which is based on historical self-glorification. The gentlemen of Trinidad, who are struggling for political enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, are not likely to heed, except as a matter for indignant contempt, the obtrusion by our author of his opinion that "they had best let well alone." On his own showing, the persons appointed to supreme authority in the Colonies are, more usually than not, entirely unfit for [77] holding any responsible position whatever over their fellows. Now, can it be doubted that less care, less scruple, less consideration, would be exercised in the choice of the satellites appointed to revolve, in these far-off lat.i.tudes, around the central luminaries? Have we not found, are we not still finding every day, that the brain-dizziness--Xenophon calls it kephalalgeia+--induced by sudden promotion has transformed the abject suppliants at the Downing Street backstairs into the arrogant defiers of the opinions, and violators of the rights, of the populations whose subjection to the British Crown alone could have rendered possible the elevation of such folk and their impunity in malfeasance? The cup of loyal forbearance reached the overflowing point since the trickstering days of Governor Irving, and it is useless now to believe in the possibility of a return of the leading minds of Trinidad to a tame acquiescence as regards the probabilities of their government according to the Crown system. Mr.

Froude's own remarks point out definitely enough that a community so governed is absolutely at the mercy, for good or for evil, of the man who happens to be invested with [78] the supreme authority. He has also shown that in our case that supreme authority is very often disastrously entrusted. Yet has he nothing but sneers for the efforts of those who strive to be emanc.i.p.ated from liability to such subjection. Mr. Froude's deftly-worded sarcasms about "degrading tyranny," "the dignity of manhood," &c., are powerless to alter the facts. Crown Colony Government--denying, as it does to even the wisest and most interested in a community cursed with it all partic.i.p.ation in the conduct of their own affairs, while investing irresponsible and uninterested "birds of pa.s.sage" (as our author aptly describes them) with the right of making ducks and drakes of the resources wrung from the inhabitants--is a degrading tyranny, which the sneers of Mr. Froude cannot make otherwise. The dignity of manhood, on the other hand, we are forced to admit, runs scanty chance of recognition by any being, however masculine his name, who could perpetrate such a literary and moral scandal as "The Bow of Ulysses." Yet the dignity of manhood stands venerable there, and whilst the world lasts shall gain for its possessors the right of record on the roll of [79] those whom the worthy of the world delight to honour.

All of a piece, as regards veracity and prudence, is the further allegation of Mr. Froude's, to the effect that there was never any agitation for Reform in Trinidad before that which he pa.s.ses under review. It is, however, a melancholy fact, which we are ashamed to state, that Mr. Froude has written characteristically here also, either through cra.s.s ignorance or through deliberate malice. Any respectable, well-informed inhabitant of Trinidad, who happened not to be an official "bird of pa.s.sage," might, on our author's honest inquiry, have informed him that Trinidad is the land of chronic agitation for Reform.

Mr. Froude might also have been informed that, even forty-five years ago, that is in 1843, an elective const.i.tution, with all the electoral districts duly marked out, was formulated and transmitted by the leading inhabitants of Trinidad to the then Secretary of State for the Colonies. He might also have learnt that on every occasion that any of the shady Governors, whom he has so well depicted, manifested any excess of his undesirable qualities, there has been a movement [80]

among the educated people in behalf of changing their country's political condition.

We close this part of our review by reiterating our conviction that, come what will, the Crown Colony system, as at present managed, is doomed. Britain may, in deference to the alleged wishes of her impalpable "Anglo-West Indians"--whose existence rests on the authority of Mr. Froude alone--deny to Trinidad and other Colonies even the small modic.u.m prayed for of autonomy, but in doing so the Mother Country will have to sternly revise her present methods of selecting and appointing Governors. As to the subordinate lot, they will have to be worth their salt when there is at the head of the Government a man who is truly deserving of his.

NOTES

53. +It is not clear from the original text exactly where the brief chapter "Trinidad" ends and where the longer one ent.i.tled "Reform in Trinidad" begins. (The copy indicates that the "Trinidad" chapter ends at page 54, but the relevant page contains no subheading.) I have, therefore, chosen to fuse the two chapters since they form a logical unit.

77. +Since there is little Greek in this work, I have simply transliterated it.

BOOK II: NEGRO FELICITY IN THE WEST INDIES

[81] We come now to the ingenious and novel fashion in which Mr. Froude carries out his investigations among the black population, and to his dogmatic conclusions concerning them. He says:--

"In Trinidad, as everywhere else, my own chief desire was to see the human inhabitants, to learn what they were doing, how they were living, and what they were thinking about, and this could best be done by drives about the town and neighbourhood."

"Drives about the town and neighbourhood," indeed! To learn and be able to depict with faithful accuracy what people "were doing, how they were living, and what they were thinking about"--all this being best done (domestic circ.u.mstances, nay, soul-workings and all!) through fleeting glimpses of shifting [82] panoramas of intelligent human beings! What a bright notion! We have here the suggestion of a capacity too superhuman to be accepted on trust, especially when, as in this case, it is by implication self-arrogated. The modesty of this thaumaturgic traveller in confining the execution of his detailed scrutiny of a whole community to the moderate progression of some conventional vehicle, drawn by some conventional quadruped or the other, does injustice to powers which, if possessed at all, might have compa.s.sed the same achievement in the swifter transit of an express train, or, better still perhaps, from the empyrean elevation of a balloon! Yet is Mr. Froude confident that data professed to be thus collected would easily pa.s.s muster with the readers of his book! A confidence of this kind is abnormal, and ill.u.s.trates, we think most fully, all the special characteristics of the man. With his pa.s.sion for repeating, our author tells us in continuation of a strange rhapsody on Negro felicity:--

"Once more, the earth does not contain any peasantry so well off, so well-cared for, so happy, so sleek and contented, as the sons [83] and daughters of the emanc.i.p.ated slaves in the English West Indian Islands."

Again:--

"Under the rule of England, in these islands, the two millions of these brothers-in-law of ours are the most perfectly contented specimens of the human race to be found upon the planet.... If happiness be the satisfaction of every conscious desire, theirs is a condition that admits of no improvement: were they independent, they might quarrel among themselves, and the weaker become the bondsmen of the stronger; under the beneficent despotism of the English Government, which knows no difference of colour and permits no oppression, they can sleep, lounge, and laugh away their lives as they please, fearing no danger,"

&c.

Now, then, let us examine for a while this roseate picture of Arcadian blissfulness said to be enjoyed by British West Indian Negroes in general, and by the Negroes of Trinidad in particular. "No distinction of colour" under the British rule, and, better still, absolute protection of the weaker against the stronger! This latter consummation especially, [84] Mr. Froude tells us, has been happily secured "under the beneficent despotism" of the Crown Colony system.

However, let the above vague hyperboles be submitted to the test of practical experience, and the abstract government a.n.a.lysed in its concrete relations with the people.

Unquestionably the actual and direct interposition of the shielding authority above referred to, between man and man, is the immediate province of the MAGISTRACY. All other branches of the Government, having in themselves no coercive power, must, from the supreme executive downwards, in cases of irreconcilable clashing of interests, have ultimate recourse to the magisterial jurisdiction. Putting aside, then, whatever culpable remissness may have been manifested by magistrates in favour of powerful malfeasants, we would submit that the fact of stipendiary justices converting the tremendous, far-reaching powers which they wield into an engine of systematic oppression, ought to dim by many a shade the glowing l.u.s.tre of Mr. Froude's encomiums.

Facts, authentic and notorious, might be adduced in hundreds, especially with respect to [85] the Port of Spain and San Fernando magistracies (both of which, since the administration of Sir J. R.

Longden, have been exclusively the prizes of briefless English barristers*), to prove that these gentry, far from being bulwarks to the weaker as against the stronger, have, in their own persons, been the direst scourges that the poor, particularly when coloured, have been afflicted by in aggravation of the difficulties of their lot.

Only typical examples can here be given out of hundreds upon hundreds which might easily be cited and proved against the inc.u.mbents of the abovementioned chief stipendiary magistracies. One such example was a matter of everyday discussion at the time of Mr. Froude's visit. The inhabitants were even backed in their complaints by the Governor, who had, in response to their cry of distress, forwarded their prayer [86]

to the home authorities for relief from the hard treatment which they alleged themselves to be suffering at the hands of the then magistrate.

Our allusion here is to the chief town, Port of Spain, the magistracy of which embraces also the surrounding districts, containing a total population of between 60,000 and 70,000 souls. Mr. R. D. Mayne filled this responsible office during the latter years of Sir J. R. Longden's governorship. He was reputed, soon after his arrival, to have announced from the bench that in every case he would take the word of a constable in preference to the testimony of any one else. The Barbadian rowdies who then formed the major part of the constabulary of Trinidad, and whose bitter hatred of the older residents had been not only plainly expressed, but often brutally exemplified, rejoiced in the opportunity thus afforded for giving effect to their truculent sentiments. At that time the bulk of the immigrants from Barbados were habitual offenders whom the Government there had provided with a free pa.s.sage to wherever they elected to betake themselves. The more intelligent of the men flocked to the Trinidad [87] police ranks, into which they were admitted generally without much inquiry into their antecedents. On this account they were shunned by the decent inhabitants, a course which they repaid with savage animosity.

Perjuries the most atrocious and crushing, especially to the respectable poor, became the order of the day. Hundreds of innocent persons were committed to gaol and the infamy of convict servitude, without the possibility of escape from, or even mitigation of, their ignominious doom. A respectable woman (a native of Barbados, too, who in the time of the first immigration of the better sort of her compatriots had made Trinidad her home) was one of the first victims of this iniquitous state of affairs.

The cla.s.s of people to which she belonged was noted as orderly, industrious and law-abiding, and, being so, it had identified itself entirely with the natives of the land of its adoption. This fact alone was sufficient to involve these immigrants in the same lot of persecution which their newly arrived countrymen had organized and were carrying out against the Trinidadians proper. It happened that, on the occasion to which we wish particularly [88] to refer, the woman in question was at home, engaged in her usual occupation of ironing for her honest livelihood. Suddenly she heard a heavy blow in the street before her door, and almost simultaneously a loud scream, which, on looking hastily out, she perceived to be the cry of a boy of some ten or twelve years of age, who had been violently struck with the fist by another youth of larger size and evidently his senior in age. The smaller fellow had laid fast hold of his antagonist by the collar, and would not let go, despite the blows which, to extricate himself and in retaliation of the puny buffets of his youthful detainer, he "showered thick as wintry rain."

The woman, seeing the posture of affairs, shouted to the combatants to desist, but to no purpose, rage and absorption in their wrathful occupation having deafened both to all external sounds. Seized with pity for the younger lad, who was getting so mercilessly the worst of it, the woman, hastily throwing a shawl over her shoulders, sprang into the street and rushed between the juvenile belligerents. Dexterously extricating the hand of the little fellow from the collar of his antagonist, she hurried the former [89] into her gateway, shouting out to him at the same time to fasten the door on the inside. This the little fellow did, and no doubt gladly, as this surcease from actual conflict, short though it was, must have afforded s.p.a.ce for the natural instinct of self-preservation to rea.s.sert itself. Hereupon the elder of the two lads, like a tiger robbed of his prey, sprang furiously to the gate, and began to use frantic efforts to force an entrance.

Perceiving this, the woman (who meanwhile had not been idle with earnest dissuasions and remonstrances, which had all proved futile) pulled the irate youngster back, and interposed her body between him and the gate, warding him off with her hands every time that he rushed forward to renew the a.s.sault. At length a Barbadian policeman hove in sight, and was hastily beckoned to by the poor ironer, who, by this time, had nearly come to the end of her strength. The uniformed "Bim"

was soon on the spot; but, without asking or waiting to hear the cause of the disturbance, he shouted to the volunteer peacemaker, "I see you are fighting: you are my prisoner!" Saying this, he clutched the poor thunderstruck creature by the wrist, and there [90] and then set about hurrying her off towards the police station. It happened, however, that the whole affair had occurred in the sight of a gentleman of well-known integrity. He, seated at a window overlooking the street, had witnessed the whole squabble, from its beginning in words to its culmination in blows; so, seeing that the woman was most unjustly arrested, he went out and explained the circ.u.mstances to the guardian of order. But to no purpose; the poor creature was taken to the station, accompanied by the gentleman, who most properly volunteered that neighbourly turn. There she was charged with "obstructing the policeman in the lawful execution of his duty." She was let out on bail, and next day appeared to answer the charge.

Mr. Mayne, the magistrate, presided. The constable told his tale without any material deviation from the truth, probably confident, from previous experience, that his accusation was sufficient to secure a conviction. On the defendant's behalf, the gentleman referred to, who was well known to the magistrate himself, was called, and he related the facts as we have above given them. Even Mr. Mayne [91] could see no proof of the information, and this he confessed in the following qualified judgment:--

"You are indeed very lucky, my good woman, that the constable has failed to prove his case against you; otherwise you would have been sent to hard labour, as the ordinance provides, without the option of a fine. But as the case stands, you must pay a fine of 2"!!!

Comment on this worse than scandalous decision would be superfluous.

Another typical case, ill.u.s.trative of the truth of Mr. Froude's boast of the eminent fair play, nay, even the stout protection, that Negroes, and generally, "the weaker," have been wont to receive from British magistrates, may be related.

An honest, hard-working couple, living in one of the outlying districts, cultivated a plot of ground, upon the produce of which they depended for their livelihood. After a time these worthy folk, on getting to their holding in the morning, used to find exasperating evidence of the plunder overnight of their marketable provisions.

Determined to discover the depredator, they concealed themselves [92]

in the garden late one night, and awaited the result. By that means they succeeded in capturing the thief, a female, who, not suspecting their presence, had entered the garden, dug out some of the provisions, and was about to make off with her booty. In spite of desperate resistance, she was taken to the police station and there duly charged with larceny. Meanwhile her son, on hearing of his mother's incarceration, hastened to find her in her cell, and, after briefly consulting with her, he decided on entering a countercharge of a.s.sault and battery against both her captors. Whether or not this bold proceeding was prompted by the knowledge that the dispensing of justice in the magistrate's court was a mere game of cross-purposes, a cynical disregard of common sense and elementary equity, we cannot say; but the ultimate result fully justified this abnormal hardihood of filial championship.

On the day of the trial, the magistrate heard the evidence on both sides, the case of larceny having been gone into first. For her defence, the accused confined herself to simple denials of the allegations against her, at the [93] same time entertaining the court with a lachrymose harangue about her rough treatment at the hands of the accusing parties. Finally, the decision of the magistrate was: that the prisoner be discharged, and the plundered goods restored to her; and, as to the countercharge, that the husband and wife be imprisoned, the former for three and the latter for two months, with hard labour! When we add that there was, at that time, no Governor or Chief Justice accessible to the poorer and less intelligent cla.s.ses, as is now the case (Sir Henry T. Irving and Sir Joseph Needham having been respectively superseded by Sir William Robinson and Sir John Gorrie), one can imagine what scope there was for similar exhibitions of the protecting energy of British rule.

As we have already said, during Mr. Froude's sojourn in Trinidad the "sleek, happy, and contented" people, whose condition "admitted of no improvement," were yet groaning in bitter sorrow, nay, in absolute despair, under the crushing weight of such magisterial decisions as those which I have just recorded. Let me add two more [94] typical cases which occurred during Mr. Mayne's tenure of office in the island.

L. B. was a member of one of those brawling sisterhoods that frequently disturbed the peace of the town of Port of Spain. She had a "pal" or intimate chum familiarly known as "Lady," who staunchly stood by her in all the squabbles that occurred with their adversaries. One particular night, the police were called to a street in the east of the town, in consequence of an affray between some women of the sort referred to.

Arriving on the spot, they found the fight already over, but a war of words was still proceeding among the late combatants, of whom the aforesaid "Lady" was one of the most conspicuous. A list was duly made out of the parties found so engaged, and it included the name of L. B., who happened not to be there, or even in Port of Spain at all, she having some days before gone into the country to spend a little time with some relatives. The inserting of her name was an inferential mistake on the part of the police, arising from the presence of "Lady"

at the brawl, she being well known by them to be the inseparable ally of L. B. on such occasions.

[95] It was not unnatural that in the obscurity they should have concluded that the latter was present with her altera ego, when in reality she was not there.

The partic.i.p.ants in the brawl were charged at the station, and summonses, including one to L. B., were duly issued. On her return to Port of Spain a day or two after the occurrence, the wrongly incriminated woman received from the landlady her key, along with the magisterial summons that had resulted from the error of the constables.

The day of the trial came on, and L. B. stood before Mr. Mayne, strong in her innocence, and supported by the sworn testimony of her landlady as well as of her uncle from the country, with whom and with his family she had been uninterruptedly staying up to one or two days after the occurrence in which she had been thus implicated. The evidence of the old lady, who, like thousands of her advanced age in the Colony, had never even once had occasion to be present in any court of justice, was to the following effect: That the defendant, who was a tenant of hers, had, on a certain morning (naming days before the affray occurred), [96] come up to her door well dressed, and followed by a porter carrying her luggage. L. B., she continued, then handed her the key of the apartment, informing her at the same time that she was going for some days into the country to her relatives, for a change, and requesting also that the witness should on no account deliver the key to any person who should ask for it during her absence. This witness further deposed to receiving the summons from the police, which she placed along with the key for delivery to L. B. on the latter's return home.

The testimony of the uncle was also decisively corroborative of that of the preceding witness, as to the absence from Port of Spain of L. B.

during the days embraced in the defence. The alibi was therefore unquestionably made out, especially as none of the police witnesses would venture to swear to having actually seen L. B. at the brawl. The magistrate had no alternative but that of acquiescing in the proof of her innocence; so he dismissed the charge against the accused, who stood down from among the rest, radiant with satisfaction. The other defendants were duly [97] convicted, and sentenced to a term of imprisonment with hard labour. All this was quite correct; but here comes matter for consideration with regard to the immaculate dispensation of justice as vaunted so confidently by Mr. Froude.

On receiving their sentence the women all stood down from the dock, to be escorted to prison, except "Lady," who, by the way, had preserved a rigid silence, while some of the other defendants had voluntarily and, it may be added, generously protested that L. B. was not present on the occasion of this particular row. "Lady," whether out of affection or from a less respectable motive, cried out to the stipendiary justice.

"But, sir, it ain't fair. How is it every time that L. B. and me come up before you, you either fine or send up the two of us together, and to-day you are sending me up alone?" Moved either by the logic or the pathos of this objurgation, the magistrate, turning towards L. B., who had lingered after her narrow escape to watch the issue of the proceedings, thus addressed her:--"L. B., upon second thoughts I order you to the same term of hard labour at the Royal Gaol with the [98]

others." The poor girl, having neither money nor friends intelligent enough to interfere on her behalf, had to submit, and she underwent the whole of this iniquitous sentence.

The last typical case that we shall give ill.u.s.trates the singular application by this more than singular judge of the legal maxim caveat emptor. A free coolie possessed of a donkey resolved to utilize the animal in carting gra.s.s to the market. He therefore called on another coolie living at some distance from him, whom he knew to own two carts, a small donkey-cart and an ordinary cart for mule or horse. He proposed the purchase of the smaller cart, stating his reason for wishing to have it. The donkey-cart was then shown to the intending purchaser, who, along with two Creole witnesses brought by him to make out and attest the receipt on the occasion, found some of the iron fittings defective, and drew the vendor's attention thereto. He, on his side, engaged, on receiving the amount agreed to for the cart, to send it off to the blacksmith for immediate repairs, to be delivered to the purchaser next morning at the latest. On this understanding the purchase money was paid down, and the [99] receipt, specifying that the sum therein mentioned was for a donkey-cart, pa.s.sed from the vendor to the purchaser of the little vehicle. Next day at about noon the man went with his donkey for the cart. Arrived there, his countryman had the larger of the two carts brought out, and in pretended innocence said to the purchaser of the donkey-cart, "Here is your cart." On this a warm dispute arose, which was not abated by the presence and protests of the two witnesses of the day before, who had hastily been summoned by the victim to bear out his contention that it was the donkey-cart and not the larger cart which had been examined, bargained for, purchased, and promised to be delivered, the day before.

The matter, on account of the st.u.r.diness of the rascal's denials, had to be referred to a court of law. The complainant engaged an able solicitor, who laid the case before Mr. Mayne in all its transparent simplicity and strength. The defendant, although he had, and as a matter of fact could have, no means of invalidating the evidence of the two witnesses, and above all of his receipt with his signature, relied upon the fact that the cart which he [100] offered was much larger than the one the complainant had actually bought, and that therefore complainant would be the gainer by the transaction. Incredible as it may sound, this view of the case commended itself to the magistrate, who adopted it in giving his judgment against the complainant. In vain did the solicitor protest that all the facts of the case were centred in the desire and intention of the prosecutor to have specifically a donkey-cart, which was abundantly proved by everything that had come out in the proceedings. In vain also was his endeavour to show that a man having only a donkey would be hopelessly embarra.s.sed by having a cart for it which was entirely intended for animals of much larger size. The magistrate solemnly reiterated his decision, and wound up by saying that the victim had lost his case through disregard of the legal maxim caveat emptor--let the purchaser be careful. The rascally defendant thus gained his case, and left the court in defiant triumph.

The four preceding cases are thoroughly significant of the original method in which thousands of cases were decided by this model magistrate, to the great detriment, pecuniary, [101] social, and moral, during more than ten years, of between 60,000 and 70,000 of the population within the circle of his judicial authority. What shall we think, therefore, of the fairness of Mr. Froude or his informants, who, prompt and eager in imputing unworthy motives to gentlemen with characters above reproach, have yet been so silent with regard to the flagrant and frequent abuses of more than one of their countrymen by whom the honour and fair fame of their nation were for years draggled in the mire, and whose misdeeds were the theme of every tongue and thousands of newspaper-articles in the West Indian Colonies?

MR. ARTHUR CHILD, S.J.P.

We now take San Fernando, the next most important magisterial district after Port of Spain. At the time of Mr. Froude's visit, and for some time before, the duties of the magistracy there were discharged by Mr.

Arthur Child, an "English barrister" who, of course, had possessed the requisite qualification of being hopelessly briefless. For the ideal justice which Mr. Froude would have Britons believe is meted out to the weaker cla.s.ses by their fellow-countrymen [102] in the West Indies, we may refer the reader to the conduct of the above-named functionary on the memorable occasion of the slaughter of the coolies under Governor Freeling, in October, 1884. Mr. Child, as Stipendiary justice, had the duty of reading the Riot Act to the immigrants, who were marching in procession to the town of San Fernando, contrary, indeed, to the Government proclamation which had forbidden it; and he it was who gave the order to "fire," which resulted fatally to many of the unfortunate devotees of Hosein. This mandate and its lethal consequences antic.i.p.ated by some minutes the similar but far more death-dealing action of the Chief of Police, who was stationed at another post in the vicinity of San Fernando. The day after the shooting down of a total of more than one hundred immigrants, the protecting action of this magistrate towards the weaker folk under his jurisdiction had a striking exemplification, to which Mr. Froude is hereby made welcome.

Of course there was a general cry of horror throughout the Colony, and especially in the San Fernando district, at the fatal outcome of the proclamation, which had mentioned only "fine" and "imprisonment," [103]

but not Death, as the penalty of disregarding its prohibitions. For nearly forty years, namely from their very first arrival in the Colony, the East Indian immigrants had, according to specific agreement with the Government, invariably been allowed the privilege of celebrating their annual feast of Hosein, by walking in procession with their PaG.o.das through the public roads and streets of the island, without prohibition or hindrance of any kind from the authorities, save and except in cases where rival estate paG.o.das were in danger of getting into collision on the question of precedence. On such occasions the police, who always attended the processions, usually gave the lead to the paG.o.das of the labourers of estates according to their seniority as immigrants.

In no case up to 1884, after thirty odd years' inauguration in the Colony, was the Hosein festival ever pretended to be any cause of danger, actual or prospective, to any town or building. On the contrary, business grew brisker and solidly improved at the approach of the commemoration, owing to the very considerable sale of parti-coloured paper, velvet, calico, and similar articles used in the construction [104] of the paG.o.das. Governor Freeling, however, was, it may be presumed, compelled to see danger in an inst.i.tution which had had nearly forty years' trial, without a single accident happening to warrant any sudden interposition of the Government tending to its suppression. At all events, the only action taken in 1884, in prospect of their usual festival, was to notify the immigrants by proclamation, and, it is said, also through authorized agents, that the details of their fete were not to be conducted in the usual manner; and that their appearance with paG.o.das in any public road or any town, without special license from some competent local authority, would entail the penalty of so many pounds fine, or imprisonment for so many months with hard labour. The immigrants, to whom this unexpected change on the part of the authorities was utterly incomprehensible, both pet.i.tioned and sent deputations to the Governor, offering guarantees for the, if possible, more secure celebration of the Hosein, and praying His Excellency to cancel the prohibition as to the use of the roads, inasmuch as it interfered with the essential part of their religious rite, which was the "drowning," or casting into [105] the sea, of the paG.o.das. Having utterly failed in their efforts with the Governor, the coolies resolved to carry out their religious duty according to prescriptive forms, accepting, at the same time, the responsibility in the way of fine or imprisonment which they would thus inevitably incur. A rumour was also current at the time that, pursuant to this resolution, the head men of the various plantations had authorized a general subscription amongst their countrymen, for meeting the contingency of fines in the police courts. All these things were the current talk of the population of San Fernando, in which town the leading immigrants, free as well as indentured, had begun to raise funds for this purpose.

All that the public, therefore, expected would have resulted from the intended infringement of the Proclamation was an enormous influx of money in the shape of fines into the Colonial Treasury; as no one doubted the extreme facility which existed for ascertaining exactly, in the case of persons registered and indentured to specific plantations, the names and abodes of at least the chief offenders against the proclamation. Accordingly, on the [106] occurrence of the b.l.o.o.d.y catastrophe related above, every one felt that the mere persistence in marching all unarmed towards the town, without actually attempting to force their way into it, was exorbitantly visited upon the coolies by a violent death or a life-long mutilation. This sentiment few were at any pains to conceal; but as the poorer and more ignorant cla.s.ses can be handled with greater impunity than those who are intelligent and have the means of self-defence, Mr. Justice Child, the very day after the tragedy, and without waiting for the pro forma official inquiry into the tragedy in which he bore so conspicuous a part, actually caused to be arrested, sat to try and sent to hard labour, persons whom the police, in obedience to his positive injunctions, had reported to him as having condemned the shooting down of the immigrants! Those who were arrested and thus summarily punished had, of course, no means of self-protection; and as the case is typical of others, as ill.u.s.trative of "justice-made law" applied to "subject races" in a British colony, Mr. Froude is free to accept it, or not, in corroboration of his unqualified panegyrics.