drew
Trimble, who entered upon his duties with vigour and determination. The
gold thieves and receivers and the illicit canteen keepers who supplied
the natives with liquor were up in arms at once and appealed to
President Krueger. They represented Trimble as having served in the
English Army, and as being in receipt of a pension from the Cape
Government, further stating that his appointment was an insult to the
Boers, who had been thus judged unworthy to provide from among
themselves a Head of Police. Mr. Esselen, who stood his ground, was
dismissed and replaced by a Hollander, Dr. Coster. Mr. Trimble, chief of
the detective force, was replaced by a man who had previously been
dismissed, and has since been dismissed again.

As it was useless to depend upon the police for the arrest of thieves,
the directors and officials of the _City and Suburban Gold Mining
Company_ took upon themselves the risks and dangers of police work. They
caught two notorious characters, known thieves, with gold in their
possession. The thieves openly boasted that nothing would be done to
them; the next day, one was allowed to escape, the other, a notorious
criminal, was condemned to six months' imprisonment. Mr. Krueger regarded
this penalty as excessive, remitted three-fourths of the sentence, and
had him discharged unconditionally.

The police of Johannesburg, a town almost entirely inhabited by English,
do not speak English--an excellent method of ensuring order! They are
chosen from among the worst types of Boers, some of whom are the
descendants of English deserters and Kaffir women; whence comes the fact
that some bear English names. The policeman Jones, who killed Edgar, is
a case in point.

The murder of Edgar was a small matter in the same way as the Dreyfus
case was a small matter; only when a case of this nature arises, it
reveals a condition of things so grave that it excites widespread
feeling at once.

Edgar was an English workman, a boilermaker, who had been a long time in
Johannesburg; a well-conducted man and generally respected. He was going
home, one Sunday night in 1898, when three drunken men insulted and set
upon him. He knocked one of them down. The other two called the police.
Edgar, meanwhile, entered his own house. Four policemen broke open his
door, and the instant Edgar came out into the passage, Policeman Jones
shot him dead with a revolver. "A mere police row," says Dr. Kuyper.

Jones was arrested next morni