Domestic slavery is slavery pure and simple, although I agree that under the African chiefs it may not be so bad as under the old planter systems. Front rank statesmen with large administrative experience have recorded the lamentable results attaching to domestic slavery, and so recently as 1906 Africa’s greatest constructive Administrator—the Earl of Cromer—penned the following significant passage:— “If the utility of the Soudan, considered on its own productive and economic merits, is not already proved to the satisfaction of the world—if it is not already clear that the reoccupation of the country has inflicted, more perhaps than any other event of modern times, a deadly blow to the abominable traffic in slaves, and to the institution of domestic slavery, _which is only one degree less hateful than that traffic_—it may confidently be asserted that we are on the threshold of convincing proof.”[9] The broad lines of domestic slavery are common throughout West Central Africa. The slave becomes the property of the head of the house or chief, who can “contract” him to third parties without reference to the one primarily concerned, that is to say the slave himself, who in turn cannot hire out his labour without the consent of his master, and he may also be transferred in payment of debt. Upon the death of the owner, the slaves with their families—who are the property of the chief—are divided amongst the heirs with other goods and chattels of the deceased. The domestic slave can by native law everywhere, and by European law in some parts, be recaptured if he runs away. According to British law the slave becomes the property of the master in Southern Nigeria “by birth or in any other manner.” This only legalizes native law, it is true, but “in any other manner” throws the door widely open to a transfer of human beings in a way highly repugnant to British sentiment. [Sidenote: A REVOLTING CUSTOM]