the angry tribe, the flight of the suspected murderer. This fugitive Basuto could be no other than the wretch Cassatonga. The slayer of poor hapless Luola had insolently dared to claim our protection.. What should we do? To hand him over to the British authorities would be useless. The accusation would not lie, inasmuch as we had no jurisdiction where the murder had been committed. It was certain, also, that our Colonial Government would refuse to give up one who was, at most, only a suspected criminal, to the native powers. Ought we to turn him adrift, compelling him to face his fate? I found myself more than once fingering my revolver, as I looked at the unsuspicious assassin of the innocent girl; and upon slight provocation I must have become what he was, a murderer. But Providence had undertaken the control of the case. Cassatonga was not to escape the consequences of his evildoing. On the following morning, when we had travelled, perhaps, a little more than two miles, the Basuto recollected that he had left his precious mirror behind him at the camp fire. He accordingly hurried. back to regain possession of it, informing us that he "be back bery soon, we no wait." We rode slowly forward, watching the fellow, as he hurried back with that peculiar louping trot which is common to all Kaffirs, until a piece of rising ground hid him from our sight. We kept on at the walking pace of a horse, halting occasionally; but he did not return. We halted long at midday, expecting his reappearance; then camped early, long before the sun had deeply westered, but to no purpose. We did not again see the bronzed Ishmaelite alive. That evening more than one of our number hinted that the Basuto had contrived to lay his hand upon some portable piece of property, with which he had absconded. Those of us who supposed him to be Cassatonga anticipated graver mischief. In the first light of the morning we rode back along the trail. The sky was brilliantly streaked with red and rose, and objects were clearly visible at a considerable distance as we spurred silently along past the mimosas, each man busied with his own thoughts. I observed that we all, as it were instinc tively, began looking to the priming of our revolvers, and drew our rifles conveniently to hand. We soon reached the water-hole, with its clump of bushes, where we had encamped. As we approached the ashes of our former fire, we drew rein with a start and a shudder. There was no need to look about us, for the body of the wretched Basuto, with two gaping assegai wounds in the breast, lay upon the open veldt, not a dozen yards away. As, rifles in hand, we sprang from our horses, we looked carefully around, and then proceeded thoroughly to search the bushes. No sign of human enemies was discoverable, though, without doubt, the keen eyes of the savages who had dyed their spears in the blood of Luola's murderer were watching us from behind some bush or stone. Those men must have been ruthlessly tracking the criminal day and night, like sleuth-hounds, only hesitating to assail him because of us. Vanity had proved Cassatonga's ruin. If it had not been for his loss of the mirror he might have escaped. As it was, that trumpery piece of looking-glass cost him his life. The dead man was only a nigger; and among the frontiersmen, who had fought with Basutos, Zulus, and Boers, there were few who valued his sorry life at a higher rate than the cost of a cartridge. Yet death, even that of a black murderer, is death; and we momentarily shuddered at his fate, as we lightly covered the body with sand and stones-a shield, perhaps, against the vultures, but no protection from the ghoulish, scavengering hyenas. When the rite of sepulture was ended we rode back once more upon our trail, in the direction in which home and comfort lay. There was silence in our ranks for the space of half an hour, after which old jests and songs resumed their sway. The dividing line between barbarism and civilisation is exceedingly narrow in South Africa; and within two hours we had passed that awful Yorke's Drift, where spears had been dyed in the blood of England's best and bravest sons. Here we halted for a while to gaze and think upon the historic scenes which lay immediately behind us, for, it might be, we should never see those golden sands, no longer stained with gore, again. To wards evening we crossed the Buffalo, and, pushing on by clear moonlight, drew rein in the quiet street of Helpmakaar. According to Sir John M'Neill, who made a special visit to, and report on, these Colonies for the Scotch Board of Supervision, Van den Bosch started from THE HOME COLÒNIES OF HOLLAND instruction, implements, or capital, can the position that if the savage, without AND GERMANY. So much social reform is in the air that any practical information bearing upon the many theories which are being ventilated is of interest just now. And as Mr. Chamberlain's Pension Scheme designs to make provision for old age so as to obviate, or at all events minimise, aged pauperism, and as General Booth's scheme, and certain proposals of the Labour Party, are founded on the idea of wholesale reform by the establishment of new communities, we propose to set before our readers short account of the State Charity Colonies* of Holland and the Labour Colonies of Germany. About the year 1818, the Society of Beneficence was established in Holland, and began a remarkable work. The fundamental belief of its promoters was that pauperism could be prevented to a to a large extent, at any rate-by providing able-bodied and deserving, though destitute, persons with an agricultural training and employment. If the Society has not been an unqualified success, and if its experiences still leave us in some doubt of the wisdom of the methods adopted, we must at least admire the energy and philanthropy of its efforts. The origin of them was this. In 1816, General Van den Bosch, who had long been stationed in the Dutch Colony of Java, found himself, at the end of the great war, at liberty to try in Holland an experiment which he had watched with much interest among the Chinese in Java during his residence there. This was the employment of pauper labourers in fertilising and cultivating barren soils. General Van den Bosch seems to have come home with this idea of utilising the pauperism of Holland in reclaiming the waste lands, just about the time that Robert Owen was, curiously enough, proposing a plan of the same sort, which the British Government rejected, but which the Dutch Ambassador transmitted to his Government. * For further information about these, the reader may consult Mill's "Poverty and the State." and "The Dutch Home Labour Colonies," by H. G. Willink, both published by Messrs. Kegan Paul & Co., to which we here acknowledge our indebted ness. make the earth yield him the means of living, much more should the indigent classes of civilised races, provided with all these advantages, be able to maintain themselves by tilling the soil; therefore, able-bodied indigent persons "of good character" could be made self-sustaining by employing them to reclaim waste lands, if funds could be obtained to purchase the waste land or to maintain the labourers until it becomes productive, Further, he believed that by occupation in agricultural labour, under training and disciplinary influences, the moral character of such persons must be greatly improved, and that they would thus in time give employment to industry in supplying their wants instead of being a burden on the community. With these objects General Van den Bosch succeeded, in 1817, in forming a Provisional Committee, of which Prince Frederick was President, and then a Society called the Maatschappij van Weldadigheid, or Society of Beneficence. The qualifi cation for membership was a subscription of 2.60 guilders per annum, purposely fixed low in order to form a wide basis. The country was divided into "adfeelingen," or supporting districts, each of which was entitled to have in the Colonies as many households as it had subscribed sums of one thousand seven hundred guilders* (one hundred and forty pounds) as a kind of foundation. The districts, however, had to bear the expenses of outfit, travelling, etc., of the persons they sent to the Colonies, and were liable for any extra or special expenses to which the Society might be put. Any district failing to pay its debt to the Society, lost the right of nomination, and one district was not allowed to pay the debt of another. The original programme of the Society included plans for Colonies for the Repression of Mendicity, Colonies for Indigent Persons and Veterans, Colonies for Inspectors of Agricultural Works, Colonies for Orphans and Foundlings, Colonies for Agricultural Instruction, and Free Colonies. But all this was not attempted at once, nor has all been achieved even now. In effect the operation of the Dutch system has been * One pound is equal to about twelve guilders. confined to Beggar Colonies and Free (or Van den Bosch was lost, for he had to Labour) Colonies. The Society began work | leave Holland on being appointed Governor as soon as it had enrolled twenty thousand of the Dutch East Indies. Then there members, whose subscriptions amounted to was a succession of bad harvests; errors of fifty-five thousand guilders, or about four management began to tell disastrously; thousand five hundred and eighty pounds. and the accounts not being properly kept, The first Colony formed was Frederiksoord, the true position of affairs remained unnear Steenwijk, on what is described as known for some time. But at last official the heath-land between the provinces of enquiry was deemed necessary, and in 1834 Drenthe, Friesland, and Overijssel. For Commissioners appointed by the King some twelve hundred acres about four recommended that the Society should be thousand six hundred and sixty pounds dissolved, and the Colonies taken over by was paid, and the Society borrowed the the State. This was not done, however, money for repayment in sixteen years with and another Commission some years later interest at six per cent. The character of disapproved of the recommendations of the land is much the same as that of the the first. But troubles increased with other Colonies subsequently founded, viz. years, the Government giving all the flat, dry, sandy soil, covered partly with assistance they could because they could thick moss, and partly with short heather, not decide between the difficulty of turning and in places with peat. It is not soil well so many thousands of colonists adrift adapted for either wheat or barley, and again, or taking them under the paternal even turnips do not flourish very well; wing of the State. Yet as between 1819 but the most suitable and profitable crops and 1820 no fewer than one hundred and are rye, potatoes, and some grasses. thirty-seven thousand three hundred and seventy-eight poor persons, including mendicants, had been received, maintained, and instructed at the Colonies-at the cost of about five pounds fifteen shillings per head, exclusive of interest on capital expenditure-it is evident the Society was really doing work which would otherwise have had to be done by the State. Finally, however, the whole scheme was reconstructed in 1859, at which time there were three Free Colonies-Frederiksoord, Willemsoord, and Wilhelminasoord-containing two thousand nine hundred and sixty souls, and two Beggar Colonies, at Veenhuizen and Ommerschaus, containing six thousand souls. In August, 1818, the first stone was laid of the first house, and soon fifty-two houses were ready to accommodate fiftytwo families, each house having three hectares, or a little over seven and a half acres, of land attached. School-house, ware. house, and spinning-house were also built, and the River Aa was made navigable for the purposes of the Colony. Two years later other fifty houses were built as a second Colony, but under the same name and conditions; and a little later a third Colony, equal in size to the other two, was established and called Willemsoord, after the then Prince of Orange. By the end of 1820 there were thus two hundred and four dwellings, accommodating a population of one thousand four hundred and fifty persons who had reclaimed seven hundred acres of heath-land. By the end of the next year (1821) a group of Free Colonies had also been established on an area of about three thousand acres, and named Wilhelminasoord. The Society at this time numbered twenty-three thousand members, subscribing about ten thousand pounds, and it had borrowed about twenty-five thousand pounds. We may as well complete its history before describing the work of the Colonies. The Society of Beneficence, then, was very popular, and was well supported by all classes, from the King downwards, but nevertheless about 1829 it began to get into serious difficulties. In the first place the controlling genius of prolonged at one side, so as to cover a wooden erection for cowhouse and store. Sir John M Neill reported that the houses are much better built, more comfortable, and better furnished than those of the independent labourers in the same district. The foundation of each household required an outlay by the Society of about one hundred and forty-one pounds, of which say forty-two pounds would represent the purchase-money of three hectares of land and the labour expended on it, about the same amount for the house, about twenty pounds for furniture and clothing, and twenty pounds for a reserve fund for extraordinary expenses, while the balance represented cows, sheep, and incidentals. In the early days of the Free Colonies the population was divided into three classes: families of free farmers and labourers, the right to place which rested with subscribers of one thousand seven hundred guilders and upwards; boarders, the right to place one resting with each yearly subscriber of sixty guilders; and orphans, the right to place one resting with each yearly subscriber of forty-five guilders. it as a paradise in the middle of a wilder- The following, according to Mr. Mills, is the present system of working the Free Colonies : "At first, when a man with a family is admitted on the estate, he is chiefly occupied as a labourer on one of the six model farms, or in the woods, and for this work, a weekly wage is paid to him. A small house, and a garden of about half an acre in extent, is also given to him. If he has any household furniture of his own he brings it with him; if he has none the director furnishes his house. When he has distinguished himself by his industry and good conduct, and has learnt the art of agriculture, he is removed to The first class only were provided with one of the farms. Here he is entirely the farm and dwelling above-named, and independent. He has now two and a half each new colonist was offered the oppor- hectares, which is equal to about seven tunity of paying off his indebtedness to acres of land, which he must farm on the Society. Every labourer was put to his own account, for which he must pay work for wages for the common benefit an annual rent, varying from twenty until his debt was liquidated. After a to seventy-five guilders, according to farm was brought under cultivation a the nature of the land. For the first colonist was charged five pounds per annum for interest and rent; but for the first three years of a settlement the colonists cultivated in common, and the produce was taken to the general storehouses. The boarder class consisted of single persons who could not take up a homestead, and who were boarded with such of the colonists as were willing to receive them for a certain annual payment. The orphan class were children placed with colonist households for a fixed consideration. Of course, the colonists sent by the various subscribing districts of the Society differed very much in character and capability. Therefore, instructors had to be provided in farm work, gardening, forestry, etc. Some were found quite unfitted for farming, but were set to work in their own trades. Mr. Mills, who visited the Free Colony at Frederiksoord a few years ago, describes year or two there is generally a struggle for existence; then follow the years of steadily increasing prosperity; and the established free farmers of Frederiksoord are a class of men as fine-looking and contented as any I saw in the Netherlands. There are thus now three classes of men on the estate: the free farmers, the labourers, and the incapables. The former are self-supporting and independent; the labourers are dependent to some extent on the generosity of the Society maintained by annual subscriptions; the latter are kept entirely by the Society, but at a very low cost." No one is ever compelled to leave the estate except for drunkenness and immorality; but if a man be found drunk three times he must leave. Frederiksoord is typical of all the Free Colonies established by private philanthropy for the purpose of ameliorating the condition of the working classes by procuring them permanent work according to their individual capacities. How does the system pay? Not at all. The Free Colonies are not self-supporting, and their success, socially speaking, seems small. It is most frequently unsuccessful townspeople who are sent by the subscribing districts, and these are not only unsuitable for the Colony, but dislike its conditions. The tendency of the population of the colonies is to decrease; and yet the colonists are industrious, placed above the reach of want without being in any sense pauperised, and, having the opportunity to work them selves into an independent position, can never be turned out so long as they behave themselves decently. similarly manufactured by the inhabitants. There are three establishments at Veenhuizen. The first is for women; the second is for men who have been trained to perform the more difficult kinds of handicraft, such as smiths and cabinetmakers; the third is for men who have been accustomed more particularly to agricultural pursuits. The distinction, however, is not by any means a definite one, In both the second and the third establishments large numbers of men are employed in the making of mats and clothing, and in the weaving and finishing of coffee-sacks for the Government. These sacks and the mats constitute the chief articles of export from the Beggar Colonies. The Dutch Other visitors have not been so favour- Government has retained the ownership of ably impressed with the appearance and the land in its colonies in the East Indies, condition of the colonists as was Mr. Mills. and the coffee plantations there are conSir John M'Neill, for instance, contrasted ducted, not by private enterprise, but by their condition with that of the neighbouring Government officials. The coffee sacks farmers, who could live in greater comfort manufactured at Veenhuizen every year, after paying high rents, and declared therefore, are purchased and used on the the Free Colonies an economic failure. national estates at the East Indies. The Certainly they are no great success when inhabitants of Veenhuizen seldom attempt they only admit some half-dozen new to escape. The overseers and officials are families annually. Next as to the Beggar Colonies, which were taken over from the Society in 1859 by the Government, who are now gradually concentrating them at Veenhuizen. The first was at Ommerschaus, which was divided into twenty one farms, each managed by a practical farmer, who employed the able-bodied male and female paupers in the work of cultivation. In return for their labour he paid the Society a certain proportion of the produce, and the Society paid the labourers in tokens current in the Colony only. They were not provided with houses and gardens like the Free Colonists, but with large halls, which were alike dormitories and dining-rooms. Of Veenhuizen, more recently Mr. Mills reports that the utilisation of the labour of beggars has converted an enormous fertile estate out of a trackless waste. Fair meadows and blooming gardens have taken the place of a bleak and barren moorland. Immediately on entering the estate, which had no visible barriers likely to prevent escape, I found the inhabitants wearing a kind of mealy-coloured cloth, a mixture of woollen and cotton. They also wore the wooden shoes common among the peasantry. The cloth is woven on the estate, and is adopted as a prison dress because of its peculiar colour; but all other things required on the estate are exceedingly considerate and polite in their dealings and conversation with the men, There is, however, a prison and solitary confinement as a last resource for those who are very refractory, and who refuse to do their work." Again : "Every week the men are paid a small wage by way of encouragement for the work they do. It is not intended, in any sense, to be a remuneration for the work done. They all receive the bare necessaries of life, and in addition a wage, which varies according to their skill and industry, from sevenpence to one shilling and eightpence a week. Two-thirds of this wage they may spend in luxuries which are not otherwise obtainable on the estate, such as butter, tobacco, bacon, and herrings; but one-third they must save against the day of their release, so that they need not go out into the world without money. At the end of the term this sum generally amounts to ten or twelve guilders. Frequently the sum is spent at the nearest town; they are found begging or found drunk in the streets; they are arrested by the police, tried before a magistrate, and sent back as quickly as possible to the Colony, where they remain contentedly for another two years, when probably they repeat the adventure." This does not read like a great social |