"TAMING THE SWAGE."

Press, Volume XLIX, Issue 14759, 1 September 1913, Page 3

"TAMING THE SWAGE."

ADDRESS AT THE CENTRAL METHODIST MISSION. Holding in his hands a nock iron that had chained a woman to the slave train, and a leg shackle that a slave had broken, tlio Rev. H. Johnson claimed, at the Central Methodist. Mission yesterday afternoon, that missionary enterprise had freed an area in Darkest Africa, as large a*> tho South Island of New Zealand, from slavery. cannibalism, and kindred, atrocities. He quoted Cecil Rhodes, to the effect that missionaries were taming the 'savage in Africa much better than Government officials, soldiers, or police, could ever do. The South African war was raging when the speaker and his wife and children wero working in Darkest Africa at Lake Tanganyika, so, far inland that ten weeks of solid marching lay before them and the coast. Cannibalism was boasted of by tho young men of the village, who would array themselves in leathers and march through the night, yelling, "we aro ! lions; wo eat human flesh." The slave traders carried out their business quite openly. One trader was offended that the hospitality of the mission wa« not extended to himself . and his gang. At nights a glare m the distance told of villages that the smver had raided and burned. '"To-day,"_he | added, "slavery has ceased to be m that part of Africa, entirely through the intcrferenco of tho missionaries, and their influence for fiood." In their belief that a dead man's spirit needed a retinue of .spirit followers, continued Mr "Johnson, massacres took placo at every grave--side. In the caso of the death of one chief, whom the speaker knew, one hundred men were murdered. Mutilation was a primitive form of justice, oa the principle of an eye for an eye; "'trial hv ordeal" was regarded as an infallible avenger. Explaining the lines that the missionary took in preventing these practices, the Rev. Mr Johnson gave a concrete example m a ! caso of mutilation. A man had accidentally smashed a girl's thumb, and the village had assembled to witness the ceremony of cutting off the thumb of the man who caused the injury. The missionary suggested that as the girl was worth in marriage forty yards of doth, her thumb might be valued at twenty, so that if the unfortunate man paid over these score yards of cloth, he might be fairly entitled to keep his thumb. The natives fancied the idea, and mutilation was followed in that village by this moro equitable and humane form of justice. At the conclusion of his address, the Rev. Mr Johnson was thanked by the Rev. J. Cocker, who conducted the mission service, Appropriate hymns were surg by the large congregation, and a welcome addition to services were several items by the V.M.C.A. male qtiartet.