Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 54086-h.htm or 54086-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/54086/54086-h/54086-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/54086/54086-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/humanleopardsacc00beatuoft Transcriber’s note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). HUMAN LEOPARDS [Illustration: SACKVILLE STREET, FREETOWN.] HUMAN LEOPARDS An Account of the Trials of Human Leopards Before the Special Commission Court; With a Note on Sierra Leone, Past and Present by K. J. BEATTY Of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law for Some Years Resident in Sierra Leone With a Preface by Sir William Brandford Griffith 33 Illustrations London Hugh Rees, Ltd. 5 Regent Street, Pall Mall, S.W. 1915 Printed by Hazell, Watson and Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. PREFACE Captain Beatty, just before leaving for the Dardanelles, asked me to write a preface. I think that the best preface will be to answer, as far as I am able, several questions which were frequently put to me on my return to civilization after the conclusion of the Special Commission Court. These questions were, “What was the object of the Human Leopard Society? Were its members cannibals for the purpose of satisfying an appetite for human flesh, or was it some religious rite? Would the sentences inflicted by the Special Commission Court have the effect of stamping out the horrible practice?” The first question can be answered with some confidence. The trend of the whole evidence showed that the prime object of the Human Leopard Society was to secure human fat wherewith to anoint the Borfima. The witnesses told us how the occasion of a murder is used to “blood” the Borfima, but the potency of this terrible fetish depends upon its being frequently supplied with human fat. Hence these murders.