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 principle of justice rewards should be granted for such services in one part of the world and not in another. It would be a very simple matter to establish a West African medal similar to the Indian one, the clasp to which would show for what particular service it had been granted.

The professional poisoners of Sherbro, Rossu, and Timmanee, are notorious: the practice of getting rid of any objectionable individual by secret poisoning is only too prevalent throughout the whole of West Africa, but usually it is carried out through the agency of fetish men, whereas in this portion of the continent it is elevated to the dignity of a profession on its own account. These poisoners, or necromancers, since they pretend to compound spells by means of which they attain their ends, are acquainted with various deadly vegetable poisons entirely unknown to the European pharmacopœia, and many persons yearly fall victims to them, whose deaths, as the medical men are unable to recognise any of the symptoms attributable to known poisons, are ascribed to other causes. They are also equally well acquainted with the antidotes for their deadly drugs; and, when an individual has reason to suspect that he has had poison administered to him, his sole chance of recovery is to call in one of these practitioners, if