LAW AND LAWYERS ON THE FIELDS.—LAW IN THE EARLY DAYS.—ABSENCE OF CRIME
AT THAT EPOCH.—THE MUTUAL HALL.—MAGISTERIAL JURISDICTION.—THE
ATTORNEY-GENERALSHIP.—ATTORNEYS AND LAW AGENTS.—A SUDDEN DEATH.—CURIOUS
NOMENCLATURE OF KAFIRS.—THE FATE OF “BRANDY AND SODA.”
Dean Swift says: “Law is a bottomless pit; it is a cormorant, a harpy
that drowns everything.” And believing implicitly in his words, I will
not weary my readers with any elaborate disquisition on the legislative
enactments, etc., which served to make up the law under which we lived
in the early days of the Diamond Fields. Suffice it to say, that to me
it seemed a very medley of inconsistency, an olla podrida, a thing of
shreds, of patches, making “confusion worse confounded.” Roman, Dutch,
English Common. Colonial Statute Law and Proclamations of the local
government were blended—no, I should rather say flung together in a
fashion so devoid of system as to be absolutely chaotic. The laws of
Griqualand West since annexation are now identical with Colonial Laws,
with the exception of a few local enactments, but at the time they were
_sui generis_, or rather, if I may be allowed, _omnium genorum_,
homogeneity being remarkable for its entire absence. It speaks well for
the contented nature of the diggers, that complaints against this
anomalous condition of things were so little rife.
In the early days, a genuine brotherly feeling reigned among the diggers
at Colesberg Kopje (Kimberley Mine), and though of course an occasional
quarrel would arise, yet as a rule there was universal amity existing.
Such a crime as robbery was, for a long time, scarcely known. The digger
left his tent all day with the entrance flaps merely tied down, and
returned at night from his work in the mine with no apprehension as to
the security of his goods and chattels. In those halcyon days, with
scarcely an exception, the natives, who are often unjustly accused of
naturally possessing thieving propensities, established the falsehood of
the charge by living an honest and laborious life, faithfully carrying
out their master’s behests, and never robbing him of a single
splint.[93]
It is my firm conviction, (and it will be admitted that I have had
extensive opportunities of judging), that the native laborers, who have
been flocking at the rate of 30,000 per annum to the Diamond Fields,
are, as a rule, sober, upright, and virtuous before they have been
corrupted by the white men, who induce them to steal, or are demoralized
by drinking the liquor supplied them by white men. Had it not been for
the unscrupulous scoundrels who first introduced illicit diamond buying,
and for the almost indiscriminate sale of liquor to natives, they would
in all probability be still as honest as at the early period, when,
except in trivial assault cases, they were very rarely brought before
the Court.
Kimberley, at this time, was without any building set apart as a High
Court. When the Judge came from Barkly on circuit, he sat in a large
building called the Mutual Hall, which used to serve a variety of
purposes, being fitted up for theatrical entertainments, which were
frequently given there, while religions services were also held in it
from time to time. I remember a trial for murder taking place in this
building before Mr. Recorder Barry, the first judge on the Diamond
Fields. The alleged facts of the case were briefly as follows: The
accused, a man and a woman, had thrown the husband of the latter down
the mine—the supposed motive for the crime being that a guilty intrigue
which existed between them might be continued without interference. The
discovery of certain suspicious circumstances had led to their arrest
and committal.
All through the day the Judge and jury had sat hearing the evidence, but
very few of the public had attended. As, however, night came on, and it
became known that the Judge purposed sitting till the case was
concluded, the Hall was quickly crowded with diggers.
Here were men begrimed with dust and coatless as they had hurried there,
men who had removed the signs of their daily toil; the floor of the Hall
was thronged so that none could move; on the window-sills stood men
clinging to each other for support, and to the very girders of the roof
a number of adventurous youths had climbed; a veritable sea of faces met
the eye, as one gazed around. On the stage sat the Judge surrounded by
the tawdry wings. Some were associated in the spectator’s minds with
occasions widely different from the background. A glimmering light was
shed by a row of flimsy Chinese lanterns suspended above, and on the
Judge’s desk were a couple of glittering dips. In front sat the counsel
at a table of rough planks, elevated chair high on liquor cases, and
behind them were the prisoners mounted on boxes stamped with the
battle-axe trade-mark, and bearing the inscription, Henessey’s XXX. As
the night wore on, the excitement grew intense; the feelings of the
public were dead against the prisoners, perhaps scarce a score in that
vast crowd had a doubt as to their guilt or wished them to escape the
murderer’s doom. The addresses of the counsel and the charge of the
Judge were listened to in breathless silence, and then the wearied jury
retired. Apparently some doubt existed in their minds, for the verdict
of Not Guilty was returned.
The present High Court in Kimberley is a lofty and extensive building
constructed of brick and stone, but for years after the Mutual Hall had
been abandoned as a temple of Justice, the Judge or Judges sat in a
wretched, tumble down shanty, which is still occupied by the Special
Court for the trial of offences against the Diamond Trade Act.
The Resident Magistrate’s Court was the favorite arena of litigants in
the early days, as there under Special Proclamations cases involving
£500, when there was an acknowledged debt, and £250 in matters of
disputed debt or damages, might be tried in a speedy and summary manner
eminently satisfactory to those who abhorred the “law’s delays.” This
extensive jurisdiction has since been largely reduced, with the result
of vastly increased costs and other serious inconveniences to the honest
man, who has unfortunately become entangled in the meshes of the law.
The first Recorder of the High Court of Griqualand West, as I have just
said, was Mr. now Sir Jacob Dirk Barry, a scholar and jurist of no mean
pretensions, and it is not too much to say that at each critical period
of the history of the Fields, as the tent burnings and the rebellion
already described, it was largely owing to Judge Barry’s firmness and
earnestness in the endeavor to maintain obedience to law and order, that
consequences which might have proved disastrous in the extreme were
happily avoided. After Mr. Barry left there were several judges and
acting judges appointed, until, annexation having taken place, a court
of three judges was formed, of which Mr. Justice Buchanan was made
President.
Of the first Attorney General, Mr. John Cyprian Thompson, I have but
little to say, as ill-health almost from the time of his appointment
prevented him from taking an active part in public affairs. To the
superstitious it would have seemed as if there was a bar upon the
Attorney-Generalship; since annexation the Crown Prosecutorship of
Griqualand West, Mr. J. C. Thompson’s successor, Mr. S. G. Sheppard,[94]
afterwards Judge and at present Administrator of the Crown Colony of
British Bechuanaland, his relations with the other members of the
Executive becoming somewhat strained, tendered his resignation. Mr. J.
S. Lord, Q. C., who succeeded him, gave up his office in preference to
either having to submit to undue interference in the performance of his
office or else living in a continual state of “protest;” the next, who
was the first Crown Prosecutor, was removed from his post, but hitherto
the gentleman at present holding the appointment has maintained his
relationship with the Attorney General without friction.
But in no British Colony, I should think, have so many enforced or semi
enforced changes taken place among officials as in Griqualand West. In
the short space of a decade there were three Resident Magistrates, a
Clerk of the Peace, two Commissioners of Police and a Chief of the
Detective Department, who were either removed from their respective
offices or deemed it advisable to resign.
As my readers may conceive, the Diamond Fields attracted a certain
number of barristers, many of whom must have made large sums of money.
The fees paid by illicit diamond buyers, when a barrister was engaged
for the defence, were, I believe, something enormous. These cases were
but a small source of income compared with the long protracted lawsuits
that used formerly to arise between various wealthy claim-holders, and
subsequently after the claims had been put into companies between these
bodies. In the early days there was a court specially established to
adjudicate upon claims to unoccupied land situate in Griqualand West,
and here several gentlemen of the long robe picked up gold and silver
with rapidity. The cases from which the lawyers perhaps derived most
emolument was a civil action brought by Isaac Sonnenberg and Edward
Eager Hurley against Alfred Ebden, the registered proprietor of the farm
on which are situated Kimberley mine and town—and another brought on
behalf of the London and South African Exploration Co., Lim., against
the government. In the first case Messrs. Sonnenberg and Hurley sought
to oust Mr. A. Ebden from his farm on the ground that they had bought a
prior and preferent claim, but their enterprise signally failed. In the
latter case, the company gained their point and compelled the government
to disgorge some portion of the rents and license moneys, which they had
improperly received and retained.
Of attorneys there were enough and to spare, and their manner of
conducting business, at least in the early days, was decidedly unique.
The one grand characteristic that distinguished them was a phenomenal
and perennial thirst, and the manful efforts which they made to quench
it were worthy of a better cause. Should a clerk omit to dot an “i” or
cross a “t,” your attorney would at once propose an adjournment to the
nearest canteen while the error was being rectified. Was a case won? So
joyful an occasion demanded a copious libation. Was a case lost? A cup
of consolation was forthwith quaffed. Was a compromise agreed on? The
prospect of renewed amity between the whilom litigants was surely worthy
of a foaming bumper.
The “Green Bar”[95] was the green room of the Judicial Theatre. I have
frequently even known adjournments of the Magistrate’s court for the
evident if not the avowed purpose of liquidating some abstruse point of
law. There was a vast amount of “bluff,” as it is vulgarly termed, and
tall talk on the part of the attorneys in those days. I remember upon
one occasion, a leading member of the side bar describing a respectable
witness as having come into the court with the Bible in his hands and a
lie on his lips, while the passages at arms between the practitioners
seemed often acrimonious to a degree; but when the court rose, the feuds
were forgotten and the contending parties again sped to the “Green Bar,”
which possessed for them an absolutely magnetic attraction.
Of the law agents, a genus I think peculiar to South Africa, and in
those days, at least, admitted without having to give the most
infinitesimal proof of their legal knowledge, I shall not say much. Some
were very good men and fair lawyers, but as a rule they consisted of
“ne’er do wells,” who having failed in every thing turned to the law as
a _dernier ressort_. The worst of them had no education, no brains, and
no money, their sole stock in trade being an absolutely unlimited amount
of arrogance which enabled them to prey upon the public. A few men of
this class were, until recently, still to be found on the Diamond
Fields.
The arrangements for juries were needlessly troublesome. Many classes of
persons being exempt, the drawing for juries pressed heavily on the poor
digger, who, while compelled to wait day after day in the precincts of
the court, was beset with fears, not improbably well grounded, that his
“boys” (native laborers) were appropriating to their own use any diamond
they might discover. Despite the unpleasantness and loss entailed by
serving on a jury, few diggers neglected to answer to their names.
For whatever reason the lawyers were not generally long-lived. I saw a
list made out by a legal friend of mine, when in a somewhat gloomy frame
of mind the other day, according to which some twenty had died since the
opening of the Diamond Fields.
I cannot help here mentioning the sudden end of one of the leaders of
the Bar at the time, and a man well known in South Africa. I was an
eye-witness of the tragic occurrence. Mr. Advocate Walker, many years
prior to the opening of the Diamond Fields, had enjoyed an extensive and
lucrative practice in Natal, and at the time of which I am now speaking
was conducting the defence of a case in which I was interested. Driving
home from my consulting-room on the evening of the day before which the
case was expected to be called, I pulled up at Mr. Walker’s house to
have a final consultation on some points I thought of importance. I
found him smoking his cigar by the fire, looking somewhat unwell, but
without anything in his appearance to lead me to anticipate the awful
catastrophe impending. I put my questions to him, and for an answer, Mr.
W. extending his arms remarked, “Don’t bother, certain to win
to-morrow.” As he uttered the last word, he gave a sudden start, bounded
from his seat, while from his mouth a jet of bright crimson blood
spurted against the wall opposite. For him to-morrow came not. He never
spoke again. An aneurism of the heart had given way and in a few seconds
he was a corpse. Ever since that melancholy event, I have experienced a
sense of no little uneasiness when the probable results of “to-morrow”
have been discounted “to-day.” As the poet says “to-morrows cheat us
all,” and thus it was in the case of poor Walker.
On mentioning this incident to a friend of mine he drew my attention to
the following exquisite lines, which I think are worthy of reproduction
here:
“We will gather flowers to-morrow,
When the mist of rain is o’er,
When the air is warm and sunny,
And the tempest howls no more.”
But the flowers are parched and faded,
For the clouds have passed away,
And we leave them still ungathered,
Though to-morrow is to-day.
“We will climb the hills to-morrow,
In the morning cool and bright:
Who could scale those rugged mountains
In the noontide’s scorching light?”
But the snow-wreaths clothe the summits.
And the mists hang chill and gray,
And we leave the slopes untrodden,
Though to-morrow is to-day.
“We will lend an ear to-morrow
To our fallen sisters’ woes;
We can scarcely hear their voices
While the music comes and goes.”
But along the thorny highway
Still with weary feet they stray,
And we pass them by, unheeding,
Though to-morrow is to-day.
“We will leave our work to-morrow,
And with eager hands and strong,
We will lead the little children
Far away from paths of wrong.”
But our hands grow old and feeble,
And the work goes on for aye,
And the little children perish,
Though to-morrow is to-day.
“We will raise our eyes to-morrow
To the cross on Calvary’s brow;
At our feet the gold is sparkling,
So we cannot heed it now.”
But we clutch the glittering fragments,
‘Mid the dust, and mire, and clay,
And we cannot raise our eyelids,
Though to-morrow is to-day.
BROWN ROBIN.—_From Chambers’ Journal, March 19, 1887._
I may here, though not strictly connected with this subject, call
attention to the strikingly curious names adopted by many Kafirs working
on the Diamond Fields, and give some instances of the manner in which
they attract public notice. Natives are by no means destitute of a sense
of humor,[96] and very often when they have been working for an employer
of passionate disposition, and have been addressed by him in no
complimentary terms, they voluntarily retain as their appellation some
abusive title, or strong objurgation of which he has made use in the
course of his remonstrances. I have not infrequently known a magistrate,
on asking a native prisoner his name, to receive the reply “G—d d—mn” or
“Bl—dy Fool;” while one unfortunate fellow, when asked the same question
in the charge office promptly answered, “Go to H—l,” and it was not
until he had been twice or three times knocked down for his apparent
insolence, that the Sergeant discovered that the native had simply given
a truthful if startling answer to the question put to him. Such names as
“Cape Smoke” (_i.e._, Colonial Brandy), “Pontac” and other alcoholic
terms are not uncommon, while “Sixpence” is one of the most favorite
names of the natives.
Perhaps one of the most singular illustrations of the eccentric
nomenclature to which I allude, and the strangely incongruous
circumstances under which instances of it occur, was given in the High
Court some two or three years ago. The anecdote serves as an example of
how, even in matters of most solemn, nay tragic import, a ludicrous
element may be present.
A native named “Brandy and Soda” had been tried for murder and found
guilty, if I recollect rightly, before Mr. Justice Buchanan, the Judge
President. Awful as is the sentence, and heartless as the man must be
who can hear it pronounced unmoved, yet many, by no means devoid of
humanity, for a moment smiled, as the Judge, having assumed the black
cap, thus addressed the prisoner: “Brandy and Soda, you have been found
guilty by an impartial jury of the awful crime of wilful murder, upon
the enormity of which it is unnecessary for me to dilate. ‘A life for a
life’ is the law for both the black man and the white, and there is no
alternative left me but to pronounce on you the sentence of death. The
judgment of this court is that you, Brandy and Soda, be hanged by the
neck till you are dead, and may,” etc.
In concluding these few remarks relative to the legal profession, I
would disclaim any wish to infer that lawyers are not a necessity, far
from it, but they are a necessity with which one would fain dispense. I
would not wish to imply that the lawyers of Griqualand West are more
unreasonably exacting than their brethren in other places, but this
observation cannot be regarded as fulsome adulation or extravagant
eulogy. It will, however, be evident. I could not advocate so extreme a
measure as that proposed by Dick to Cade, “The first thing we do, let’s
kill all the lawyers.”[97]
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