CONGO CRUELTIES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11934, 7 January 1901, Page 2

CONGO CRUELTIES.

HORRORS OF THE SLAVE TRADE -REVIVED. A. member of a wi'il-known London firm connected v with the ivory trade has been giving an interviewer some startling particulars about tho treatment of the native races in ,the Congo. The Belgians sent out, are, ho says, a very indifferent c!n»s, comprising officers on the black book-, of tho Government, men cf small intelligence., and ne'er-do-wells. Into their hands is placed tho care'of the natives, and ivith most deplorable results. The inducements offered to men to serve in the Congo Free State are not such as to attract good men, and those that do go squeeze and filch and pppress the black population with positive slavery. Natives are allured with specious promises from undor all flags, and each receives a sovereign in English money upon being engaged. The agent, on his own account, re-collects half of this sum as commission for securing black labour ii job. This is the initial swindle iipoij the king and the native. In the course of time the native goes to the interior to work on railways or rubber or ivory, and from the moment that he leaves the coast his freedom is forfeited. When he returns, broken and diseased, he is a cringing slave, ehowing the marks of the whip that has beaten the manhood out of him. In illness or accident he is cast aside to rot, unless he possesses strength to crawl to a doctor. Therotive tribes of the Congo vest all their wealth with a headman, who invariably buries the treasure in a secret place. Cases of shocking maltreatment have oc-. enrred—a' veritable inquisition—in order to make natives divulge these hiding holes; and on one occasion the captain of a British steamer was appealed to by flying blacks to save them from a hell of torment and ignominy worse than death. ' When tho time comes to return the natives to their own parts they are physically useless. The steamship Akassa on one such voyage landed 160 alive out of 300 shipped in & state of disease and rottenness.