A jury was chosen, and I have already told the
results.
At length these vindictive cases became so numerous and so scandalous that
strong measures became necessary. Governor Blackall (1862-66) was brave
enough to issue an order that cases should not be brought into the civil
courts unless complainants could prove that they were men of some
substance. Immense indignation was the result; yet the measure has proved
most beneficial. The negro no longer squares up to you in the suburbs and
dares the 'white niggah' to strike the 'black gen'leman.' He mostly limits
himself to a mild impudence. If you ask a well-dressed black the way to a
house, he may still reply, 'I wonder you dar 'peak me without making
compliment!' The true remedy, however, is still wanting, a 'court of
summary jurisdiction presided over by men of honour and probity.'
[Footnote: _Wanderings in West Africa_, ii. pp. 231-23.]
It cannot be said that the Sa Leonite has suffered from any want of
religious teaching or educational activity. On the contrary, he has had
too much of both.
After the collapse of Portuguese missionary enterprise on the West Coast,
the first attempts to establish Wesleyan Methodism at Sa Leone were made
in 1796, when Dr.
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