Thereupon the law was further amended in 1901, and it was made a felony for any person without lawful authority or excuse to have in his possession, custody, or under his control an alligator skin shaped or made so as to make a man wearing the same resemble an alligator. During the year 1903 a Circuit Court, presided over by a judge who sat with assessors, was constituted, and after that date all offences against the Human Leopard and Alligator Society Ordinances were tried by that Court. From that date up to the middle of 1912 there were before the Circuit Court 17 cases, in which 186 persons were charged with murder under the above-mentioned Ordinances; of these persons 87 were convicted and sentenced to death, and in many cases the sentence was duly carried out publicly in the vicinity of the place where the murder was committed. In July, 1912, a murder took place at Imperri; the murderers were disturbed at their work; a man who was patently concerned in the murder, but was not one of the actual murderers, was arrested; upon this man’s shoulders the murderers threw the whole burden of explanation. Unable to invent even a plausible explanation, he made a clean breast and gave the names of those implicated in the murder. In the course of his explanation other murders were referred to and other names were mentioned, with the result that further arrests were made, whilst other members of the Society whom he named turned King’s evidence. In this way the authorities obtained information with respect to about 30 human leopard murders since 1907, and between 300 and 400 persons, including several paramount chiefs (Mahawas) and a large number of sub-chiefs (Mahawurus), were arrested. As in many cases no corroborative evidence was procurable, the majority of these persons were released, leaving 108, who were committed for trial. To meet some of the difficulties which had arisen, the Government thereupon brought forward two Bills, one of which extended and strengthened the existing law as to unlawful societies, whilst the other set up a special court for the trial of persons charged with offences connected with unlawful societies, and authorized the deportation of persons who, although acquitted by such court, were, in the opinion of the court, a source of danger to the peace of the district. The Attorney-General, in introducing the first Bill into the Legislative Council of Sierra Leone, said: “It will be within the knowledge of Honourable Members of this Council that the operations of the Human Leopard Societies in the Protectorate—chiefly in the Northern Sherbro District—have been lately very active.