The Mena weekly star., 1920-01-29

he would pass rom group to group settling all those disputes which could be determined without recourse to legal argument. In this manner he sifted to minimum the cases to come before the solemn conclave of chiefs.
 On the first occasion that Andrea witnessed this tribal ceremony which occyrred monthly at a certain stage of the moon, she began by feeling huffed but, lacking an audience for her mood, soon gave it up for one of scornful amusement which, in turn, surrendered to an interest that almost amounted to awe. The day in question began with the curt information from Msungo, who appeared carefully greomed and, for the first time in her experience, dressed in punctilious mufti, that she would have to amuse herself for twelve hours without his aid. Mysti- lied, she awaited developments, and they came-rapidly.
 Under the great acacia was placed table and behind it camp armchair. To the right and left of this throne of Justice stood in crescent fourteen other seats of varying dignity-chairs. petroleum cases, kerosene tins and an inverted bucket-for every native king, be he monarch of but one vil- lage, has the right to sit in the pres ence of authority, whatever it's grade. The white man took the armchair and immediately, to the rumble of q dozen tom-!oms, a horde of natives-all men --swarmed into the beaten court of the craai.
 Those natives who lacked the royal hallmark were squatting on their heels in a vast mass of serrated and concentric circles of which the inner most left an olen space whose peri phery was determined by the exact circumference of the wide-spreadng branches of the tree. Andrea coughed softly but Msungo did not look up-in fact, nobody looked up. Ii was ex- actiy as though she were not She slsg.ed to the trunk of a tree and .eeiod oA one hand placed against it. Somehow it seemed an only friend in an empty world.
 The pre'in'nary palaver was nul ter of rnrh ieisurely ceremony, gut tu-al pronouncements, grupss. pauses, more monologues, repeated grunts but, once it was over, M'sungo settled back with a sigh and started dispens- ing justice with breathless rush that reminded one of the manner in which he dispatched game.
 Tt seemed to Andrea that he never waited to hear more than the state ment of the offense when Ia wopld ifn- mediately pronounce sentence. "Twen- ty lashes; nextl Thirty lashes; next l Twelve lashes; next" at the rate of about case for every two minutes. Nine times out of ten the victim would smile sheepishly and withdraw; in the | tenth case there would come look of sullen wonder into the cuIprits face. whereupon the white man would promptly call halt and demand more evidence. Such cases were then al- lotted half an hour and even an hour each. and without exception resulted in the acquittal of the prisoner at the bar.
 Andrea was suddenly aware of Msungo's voice indubitably addressed to her though he kept his eyes to the front and spoke in a toneless mono logue as if he were communing with 1 himself. "BeholdI Psychology on the job he said. Watch their faces. | Every native that knows his sentence to be just, takes it with an apologetic smile; if he looks sullen. the chances are hundred to one that he's inno- cent. I've never gone wrong. They | think I'm a wonder. Nexti'
 tTo be continued.)