The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-06-11

~N--~-"-N
 the Importance of Labor.
 It is six o'clock on a glorious summer morning in South Africa. The Sun is climbing over the typical jagged peaks of the eastern mountains, whose base is enveloped in white mist, surely pres aging the normal day of flame. There they come, round thebend of the road. Such a tatter-demalion crowd! Sir John Falstaff's ragged regiment of re- cruits was surely a well-equipped, smartly-arranged band, compared with this party of living, moving carecrows. All are forefoot. All wear Tapping hats, stained, sorn, shapeless, looking as though they had been delved from the most ancient and unsavory dust bin, the brim (if any) turned down be- hind and poked up in front. All wear trousers-of a sort-but so prOfusely and yariedly patched that it is we'll nigh impossible to discern a piece of the original material. Those that don a coat wear it behind before, or slung round their shoulders, tabard-fashion.
 Some have on an old, loose sack. with holes through which the arms are thrust, and slit for the head, the gar ment suggesting ponco. All heir. up per garments are cast aside ere work is commenced-to be thought about and discussed, and as the burning rays of the sun shoot more vertically down, scraps of shirt and singlet, pierced like colander (possibly worn as loose. out side fluttering garments), are doffed, and the noble savages reveal their bare brown chests and arms. They have none of the white mans delicacy about performing toilet rites in public Some of the boys come to work at ear- ly morning wearing two pairs of trou- sers (they have a great fancy for wear ing about with them the whole of their scanty wardrobe), and as the sun climbs toward the zenith you will see a boy thus dually garbed sit down upon a rock and divest himself of one pair (probably the undermost), and place them carefully in 8 hole, on tone un- der bush, or wherever the owner has CdCIC lOI IIiC ICGGPllOIA oL such impedimenta as a water bottle, a pannikin, an overcoat, and the like valued articles.
 There they are, struggling along; like all wild creatures, they scorn closely serried discipline in the line of march, and regularity and punctuality of pa- rade. y!-ah!-thereby de- bends noteworthy matter. How do they know the time, seeing that no boy possesses watch, and that no one of them could tell the hour did he see the face of one? How it is that they ar rive at the place of work ten minutes late this morning, a quarter of an hour late tomorrow, and, despite threats of punishment and responsive vouble promises of amendment, twenty min- utes behind time the next day? And how it is that when threats are put into practice, and the delinquent is booked a quarter short, the following morning sees every boy at his post punctually at six o'clock.
 Here have indicated the most effec- tive form of punishment, for your Kaf- fir at work is keenly desirous of ac- quiring as much mail (money) as he can in the shortest possible time. If asked whether he will be docked por- tion of pay or handed over to the chief to be f1ogged, a delinquent invariably chooses the latter. They do not like silver, which they always try to ex- change for gold, much to the worrying of their white supervisors, with whom they will trustfully ltave large quanti- ties of silver coins until the 'Nkois is able or willing to give them sovereigns and half-sovereigns. These are placed in hollow leathern bracelets, worn night and day upon wrists and ankles In the minds of the owners they rep resent cattle-wives (that is, farm la borers)-a life of ease and idleness.
 Had the boys now under considera- ton been tame Kaffirs-had they worked previously in the diamond mines at Kimberly or on the gold fields of the Rand-they would have an- swered to some such names as "Shil- ling" "Sixpense," "Cango" (brandy), .sBig. Head,' Stump Nose" Hickey (threepence), "Lanky,'' "ScheIm' (ras- cab, and the like. But this being their first trip from their distant home, they gave me their native names-Zazini, the chief, 'Ntwalo, Sicliko, 'Nsumku- mbini, Haiaya, Matabesi, Kazimba, Inyanga (the prophet), Inkuku (the fowD, Inia (the dog), Kohus, etc.
 Observe them on their way to work. They come struggling along, creeping like boys unwillingly to school; but walking from the hips with each foot lightly, firmly, yet fiatly put down, with an easy, upright carriage, not seen in the shoe-pinched, clothes-confined races All are smaking; even Sicliko, the Benjamin of the trade, apparently about fourteen (they do not know their own ages)-an emaciated cinsumptive urchin, for whom the fragrant weed is little less than letha1, as evidenced by hollow cough and streaming eyes. Sometimes their stock of icuba (tobac- co) gives out, and they have perforce to buy, with hard-earned cash, that which is so plentiful at home. Often they eke out their store-bought supply with leaves and twigs or aromatic shrubs gathered on the hillside near by,
 They seem to regard the operation of smoking just as much in the days work as eating mealie pap and wheel ing barrows or rolling stones Ob- serve the boy 'Ntwalo. The engineer .sxa1r .oIA TY, l: ,+ nd