Page:The future of Africa.djvu/55

Rh ers, or who have been convicted of crime; where they could be trained to the use of the plough and hoe, and receive a good, but simple English education. Our neighbors too, that is, those who live near our settlements, should be bound, by law, to make broad and substantial roads for travel, to keep the Sabbath, and to conform more to our habits of dress than they now do. Moreover we cannot be too early in giving them the benefit of the great Saxon institutions of Trial by Jury, and personal protection. Life should be made sacred among them in the neighborhoods of our larger towns. The Sassy-wood Ordeal should be put an end to, and a due process of law guaranteed to all criminals and suspected parties among them. This I know could not be done in remote places; but in the vicinity of our towns and settlements, sanguinary retaliation, envy, and revenge should not be allowed to show themselves as they now do; nor the awful scenes which take place, almost under our eyes, be suffered to barbarize our children. Indeed, both for their benefit and our own, law and authority cannot be too soon established among them on a firm basis, and with full legal forms. It is a matter alike of policy and of duty for us to attempt, though at a humble distance, the same legal reformation among this people that the English have, with great success effected in India. There is no greater disparity here in our relative numbers, than there, between the Christian power and the heathen masses; while here we have a population at once simple and unenlightened to deal with, and the presence and protection of the three chief naval