The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-03-13
CATCHING A THIEF IN ZANZIBAR.
Medicine Men Act as Detectives and
Police On the Island.

! On the island of Zanzibar, the matter
of servant hire and wages are the
merest trifles. The wages amount to
almost nothing, a couple of dollars or
so a month. and, as a general thing,
! the thieving of the servants is kept
within endurable bounds. Steal, the
native servants will: all their masters
know and expect this, and if it is not
carried too far, nothing is said about
| it.
Upon an occasion when one of the
! foreign consuls was moving, he missed
an elegant solid silver dinner service.
This was little more than he could
stand, so he went to the proper native
officials with his complaint Said he:
See here, these people have been steal
ing from me right straight along, and,
as the sums total was small, / said
nothing about it: but 1 draw the line
when it comes to losing a solid silver
dinner set, and 1 want you to set your
police at work, catch the thief and
punish him"
! The proper native official simply
laughed at the consul, and said: "Oh.
we never bother about these things.
| You go to the medicine man with your
! complaint; he will catch the thief for
you.''
Finding that there was no possible
use to talk any more with the proper
native official, the consul betook him
self to finding out who the medicine
man was, where he lived, and what ar
engagements could be made. When his
| highneSS was got at instead of being
| his highness, he was found most de-
! cidedly to be his lowness, for he was a
| little, miserable, squatty, crooked-leg,
hunchback negro.
I,r ,trI, 7, 4 -+NI1.
the plate. A date was fixed, and the
consul was told, in advance, what pre-
cautions he must take. Anticipating
that the show was going to be worth
seeing, the gentleman sent out cards
of invitation to twenty or more Euro
pean residents of Zanzibar.
The day and the medicine man ar
! rived; the latter in the gorgeous I'M
dress Of his country In his hand the
/ medicine man carried four little round
! sticks, about a foot long, and three
| fCurths of an inch in diameter. At his
| request they brought him a small, low
table, that, when he. the medicine man,
was squatting, Turk-fashion on the
floor he could comfortably rest his
hands upon. He gave the consul, who
| had been robbed, two sticks, telling
him to hold them by one end, one in
each hand, and to be careful not to
| drop them; that he himself would hold
| the others. Then all the servants were
to be IN the next room and called in
one at a time, when the medicine man
would say: Now send in one"
The consul took hold OF his sticks,
/ and the medicine man began his in
cantation. all the time holding the
sticks in his hands, looking straight
ahead of him into and at nothing
rocking his body to and fro, and al
ways muttering, mumbling and sput-
tering over some gibberish. The sticks
in the hands of the consul pulled and
tugged so hard to get away from him
that he could scarcely hold them; and
he asked one of his friends to relieve
him for While, which was done, but
the medicine man seemed to experience
no Inconvenience in holding his.
AT length one of the servants was
called in, and commanded to put his
hands upon the table. He did so. and
after Il minute or two the medicine
man said: NO, you are not the thief:
go out and send in another" The sec
ond came, but he was innocent and
still more, but each man was innocent
The Juggling and straining of the sticks
in the hands of the Europeans kept
| on, and one after another took his seat
| opposite the muttering medicine man,
until at length the master of the house
was again seated with the sticks in
his hands, and no less than ten of his
servants. male and female, had been
called in, acquitted and sent out. The
thing was getting monotonous The
twelfth suspect was the consul's coach
man, a man who had been with him
a number of years, and who was con-
sidered above suspicion. No sooner
were the hands of the coachman on
the table than the sticks held by the
consul simply yanked the hands that
held them over towards the coachman.
and clamDed themselves around one Of
his wrists; the sticks held by the medi-
cine man performing the same hand
cuff trick on the other wrist
Before the medicine man had had
time to say This is the thief" the
coachnan exclaimed: Il am not the
only one in it. There are others" And
sure enough, the sticks clamped around
the wrists of two of his fellow servants
in exactly the same manner.
RUTH EVERETT.
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