г CHAPTER XI. THE BEGINNING OF THE END. So the year dragged on with its one little glimmer of light and its big black clouds of disappointment, and it was Christmas-time when the spark came to the waiting tinder. What a bloody bill could the holidays and holy days of the world tot up! On the Sunday night before Christmas a British subject named Tom Jackson Edgar was shot dead in his own house by a Boer policeman. Edgar, who was a man of singularly fine physique and both able and accustomed to take care of himself, was returning home at about midnight when one of three men standing by, who as it afterwards transpired was both ill and intoxicated, made an offensive remark. Edgar resented it with a blow which dropped the other insensible to the ground. The man's friends called for the police and Edgar, meanwhile, entered his own house a few yards off. There was no attempt at concealment or escape; Edgar was an old resident and perfectly well known. Four policemen came, who in any circumstances were surely sufficient to capture him. Moreover, if that had been considered difficult, other assistance could have been obtained and the house from which there could have been no escape might have been watched. In any case Edgar was admitted by the police to have sat on the bed talking to his wife, and to have been thus watched by them through the window. It is not stated that they called upon him to come out or surrender himself, but they proceeded immediately to burst in his door. Hearing the noise he came out into the passage. He may or may not have known that they were police: he may or may not have believed them to be the three men by one of whom he had been insulted. There is not a word of truth in the statement since made that Edgar had been drinking. It was not alleged even in defence of the police, and the post-mortem examination showed that it was not so. A Boer policeman named Jones (There are scores of Boers unable to speak a word of English, who nevertheless own very characteristic English, Scotch, and Irish names-many of them being children of deserters from the British army !) revolver in hand burst the door open. It is alleged by the prisoner and one of the police that as the door was burst open, Edgar from the passage struck the constable on the head twice with an ironshod stick which was afterwards produced in Court. On the other hand Mrs. Edgar and other independent witnesses— spectators-testified that Edgar did not strike a blow at all and could not possibly have done so in the time. The fact, however, upon which all witnesses agree is that as the police burst open the door Constable Jones fired at Edgar and dropped him dead in the arms of his wife, who was standing in the passage a foot or so behind him. On the following morning, the policeman was formally arrested on the charge of manslaughter and immediately released upon his comrades' sureties of £200. As gunpowder answers to the spark so the indignation of the Uitlander community broke out. The State Attorney to whom the facts were represented by the British Agent in Pretoria immediately ordered the re-arrest of the policeman on the charge of murder. The feeling of indignation was such among British subjects generally, but more especially among Edgar's fellow-workmen, that it was decided to present a petition to her Majesty praying for protection. British subjects were invited to gather in the Market Square in order to proceed in a body to the office of the British Vice-Consul and there present the petition, but in order to avoid any breach of the Public Meetings Act they were requested to avoid speech making and to refrain in every way from any provocation to disorder. Some four or five thousand persons gathered together. They listened to the reading of the petition and marched in an orderly manner to the office of the British Vice-Consul where the petition was read and accepted. This was the first direct appeal to her Majesty made by British subjects since the protests against the retrocession eighteen years before. Not very many realized at the time the importance of the change in procedure. There could be no "As you were" after the direct appeal: either it would be accepted, in which event the case of the Uitlanders would be in the hands of an advocate more powerful than they had ever proved themselves to be, or it would be declined, a course which would have been regarded as sounding the death-knell of the Empire in South Africa. The time was one of the most intense anxiety; for the Uitlanders hung upon the turn of the scale. future of the It was late one night when those who had been called to Pretoria to receive the reply of her Majesty's Government returned to the Rand. The real reply then was known only to three men; it was simply, point blank refusal to accept the petition. There were no reasons and no explanations. It was done on the authority of Sir William Butler, the Commander-in-Chief in South Africa and acting High Commissioner; for Sir Alfred Milner was at that time in England, as also was Mr. Conyngham Greene. But the faith was in these men that it could not be true, that it could not have happened had Sir Alfred Milner not been absent, and thus came the suggestion to 'explain it away.' On the following day British subjects on the Rand learned that a breach of diplomatic etiquette had been committed, that the petition should never have been published before being formally presented to her Majesty, and that thus it would be necessary to prepare and present another in proper form. The petition was redrawn and in the course of the following weeks upwards of 21,000 signatures were obtained by that loyal and enthusiastic little band of British subjects who form the Johannesburg branch of the South African League. In the meantime other things had been happening. Messrs. Thomas R. Dodd and Clement Davies Webb had been arrested under the Public Meetings Act for having organized an illegal meeting in the Market Square, Johannesburg, for the purpose of presenting the petition to the British Vice-Consul. They were released upon bail of £1,000 each. Whether this was a fair example of the judicial perspective in the Transvaal, or whether it was a concession to the feelings of the Boers it is impossible to say, nor does it much matter. The fact is that for the crime of killing a British subject the bail was £200; and for the crime. of objecting to it the bail was £1,000. This action only added fuel to the fire and a public meeting was immediately convened to be held in a circus building known as the Amphitheatre. Meetings are permitted under the Act provided they are held in an enclosed building. The object of the meeting was to record a protest against the arrest of Messrs. Dodd and Webb. A great many of the more ardent among the British subjects were of opinion that the time for protests and petitions was past, and they would not attend the meeting. A great many others feeling that it was more or less a formality leading to nothing else, did not trouble to attend. Not one of those who did attend had the least suspicion of any organized opposition. The following dispatch from the High Commissioner to the Secretary of State for the Colonies sufficiently describes the sequel : GOVERNMENT HOUSE, CAPE TOWN, April 5, 1899. SIR, I have the honour to forward herewith the certified and attested copies of affidavits which form an enclosure to Mr. Wyberg's letter, transmitted to you in my dispatch of the 28th March, but which did not reach me in time to catch the last mail steamer. From these affidavits, the number of which and the manner in which they confirm one another seem to me to leave no doubt of their general trustworthiness, it appears : 1. That early on the morning of Saturday, the 14th January, the foremen in charge of the various camps along the Main Reef Road were instructed to tell a certain number of their workmen to be at the Amphitheatre in Johannesburg at 2 p.m., where they would be addressed by an official of the Public Works Department, Mr. P. J. Malan (Hoofd van Afdeeling Wegen). 2. That the affair had been planned beforehand, and that Acting Road Inspector Papenfus and others systematically visited the various camps on that morning in order to beat up recruits, and that inquiry was made in some cases to ensure that the persons sent should be 'treu,' i.e., Boer or Afrikander workmen who might be expected to take the side of the Government. The Russian workmen were not asked to go. 3. That the men were paid two hours earlier than usual, and that those men who were ordered to go were told, if they could not get Government carts, they should hire and recover afterwards. 4. That in some cases, as that of the Boksburg section, the men were conveyed the greater part of the way by Government carts. 5. That when the men arrived at the Amphitheatre, about 2 p.m., a man who was either Mr. Bosman, Second Landdrost's Clerk, or Mr. Boshof, Registrar of the Second Criminal Court, and perhaps both of them, told them to go to the Police Station. 6. That on arriving at the Police Station, they were addressed by Mr. Broeksma, Third Public Prosecutor, and told they were there to break up the meeting when he gave them certain signals. 7. That they then went into the Amphitheatre, and that there were present, besides Mr. Broeksma, Mr. Papenfus, Mr. Jacobs, Special Road Inspector, Mr. de Villiers, Second Public Prosecutor, and Mr. Burgers, also an official, as well as several prominent members of the Town and Special Police in plain clothes. 8. That the different sections of the Road party men were placed in various parts of the building, under their respective foremen, and that several Government officials assisted in locating them. 9. That a number of the men did not understand what they were there for. 10. That the proceedings on the part of the promoters of the meeting, which, as you are aware, had been sanctioned by the Government, were perfectly regular. II. That on the first appearance of the promoters of the meeting there was a concerted disturbance, which rendered it totally impossible to go on with the proceedings. 12. That in the riot which followed several people were seriously injured, the sufferers in every case being bonâ fide sympathizers with the object of the meeting, and the aggressors being persons who had come there with the object of breaking it up. 13. That the Police did not make the smallest effort to check the disturbances though it would have been easy to do so, and that, when appealed to, they maintained an attitude of indifference. 14. That Broeskma, Third Public Prosecutor, and Lieutenant Murphy, of the Morality Police, actually assisted in breaking chairs, and encouraged the rioters. I have, &c., Governor and High Commissioner. With affairs of this kind stirring up race hatred and feeling among the class from whom the juries have to be selected, what chance was there of securing an impartial trial of the policeman charged with the murder of Edgar? The Acting British Agent Mr. Edmund Fraser in his dispatch of December 23 tells what he thought of the prospect before these affairs took place. As to the ultimate charge to be brought against the policeman, the State Attorney was doubtful whether the charge had not better be one of culpable homicide, for the reason that in the presence of a Boer jury his counsel would have a much easier task in getting him off under a charge of murder than for culpable homicide. But |