nsulting rebuff from the gaoler
they endeavoured to represent the man's case so as to have him
released, but without success. It need only be added that the
unfortunate man did not serve his entire term, the first act of the
first released Reformers being to pay up the surety required and
provide him with funds to leave the country. Grant may have been as
guilty and offensive as eccentricity can make a man, but nothing can
justify the manner in which he was treated.

The stocks in the hands of Du Plessis were not the mild corrective
instrument which they are sometimes considered to be. According to
this authority the stocks can be made to inflict various degrees of
punishment. Du Plessis states that when he took over the gaol he
found that the custom was to place men in the stocks within a cell
and to trust to the irksomeness of the position and the solitary
confinement to bring about a better frame of mind; but he soon found
that this system was capable of improvement. His first act was to
place the prisoners white or black in the stocks in the middle of the
yard, so that they should be exposed to the observation and remarks
of all the officials and visitors and their fellow-prisoners. In
explaining the reasons for this change, he said that he found that
in a cool cell a man could be tolerably comfortable and that even the
most hardened of them preferred not to be seen in the stocks by
others; whereas in the yard they were obliged to sit on the uneven
gravel and to endure the heat of the sun as well as being 'the
cynosure of every eye.' But this did not satisfy the ingenious Du
Plessis. The yard of the Pretoria gaol inclines from south to north
about one foot in four, and Du Plessis' observant eye detected that
the prisoners invariably sat facing down the slope--for of course
they were not allowed to lie down while in the stocks, this being too
comfortable a position. Upon studying the question he found that in
this way much more ease was experienced owing to the more obtuse
angle thus formed by the body and the legs. This did not suit him and
he issued further orders that in future all prisoners in the stocks
should be obliged to sit facing uphill, and that they should not be
allowed to hold on to the stocks in order to maintain themselves in
this position but should have to preserve the upright posture of the
body by means of the exertion of the muscles of the back alone.
Needless to say the maintenance of such a po