be familiar with the language of the criminal classes.  The hitch was maintained for some months, but finally the influences on the side of the President became too strong, and when it became clear that the many months of laborious work and self-sacrifice which had been given in the interests of reform were to be nullified by the appointment of a creature who would connive at every breach of the law, Mr. Esselen decided to stand or fall by his subordinate, the result being a triumph for the President.

In Mr. Esselen’s place there was appointed as State Attorney Dr. Coster, a Hollander, who however declined to have anything to do with the organization of the police; and in Mr. Trimble’s stead reappeared the individual whom he had superseded and whose services had been dispensed with.{15} The triumph of the back-door influences was again complete and the blow was a very nasty one to the mining industry.

Small wonder that at about this time the Uitlander community stopped all agitation, and that a mood of sullen opposition and discontent took its place.  Hope was absolutely dead as abuse after abuse and scandal after scandal were showered upon them during the Session of 1895.  Some of the acts of the Volksraad cut at the foundation of all security.  In the early days of the Republic the Volksraad members had taken it upon themselves to reverse several of the decisions of the High Court, and in one case where the Government was being sued for the fulfilment of a contract the Volksraad had passed a resolution absolving the Government from certain terms of the contract.  The decision of the Court, delivered by Chief Justice Kotze, was to the effect that if the Volksraad should take a decision in conflict with an existing law, that law became ipso facto so far modified.  In another case (the Dom’s case) a resolution was passed disabling the aggrieved individual from taking action against the Government; in another, where the responsibility of the Government for the maintenance of roads had been indicated by a judgment for L1,000 damages, a law was passed in defiance of the conditions of the Grondwet, which stipulates for a period of notice and publication for proposed enactments, absolving the Government from all damages of this nature.

More than once laws were passed with retroactive effect—­truly one of the grossest abuses possible for a civilized Government.  But perhaps the most startling case of all was that concerning the proclamation of the farm Witfontein.  This farm had been proclaimed a public digging open for pegging on a certain hour of a certain day.  An unprecedented rush of peggers took place.  The Government, fearing a riot and ignoring their obvious duty in the matter of police protection and the maintenance of order, issued an illegal notice withdrawing the proclamation, and decided to give out the claims by means of lottery.  Numbers of prospectors pegged out claims notwithstanding this, and the prospect of legal difficulties being imminent