But the Rand lords were not the type of men who would be chary of impressing upon the Chinamen in secret the full meaning of their position on the Rand. As it is the case in the mines, so is it the case in the compounds. The white man not only hates the yellow man, but fears him. He knows that at any moment he may be murdered, and with this fear in his heart has resorted to all sorts of brutality. The Chinamen can be flogged by law for almost any act. The Ordinance says that a Chinaman cannot leave the compound without a permit, and prescribes his life for him on absolute machine-like lines. The amended Ordinance of July 1904 says that he can be flogged in cases of assault with intent to commit any offence. Of course, an assault with intent to commit any offence might consist in hustling his neighbours in an attempt to escape from his compound, in pushing against the white overseer, in refusing to work. In short, the law was so ingeniously amended that the Chinaman could be flogged for anything. But the law was really not needed. The manager of the Croesus Mine admitted that when he considered a Chinaman wrong he had flogged him; that it might be against the law to flog him, but he had done so, and would continue to do so. And he was not only flogged for disobeying the regulations under which--knowingly, it is said--he had indentured himself, but for refusing to work. An Ordinance might substitute corporal punishment for imprisonment in the case of misdemeanours on the part of the Chinaman and so escape the title of slavery; but to force a man to work by corporal punishment is nothing but the essence of slavery. And yet these yellow men have been whipped to their work again and again. But flogging is no new thing on the Rand, nor is it confined to the Chinaman. The native knows the sjambok of the Rand lord well enough. "I well recollect," says Mr. Douglas Blackburn (lately assistant editor of the defunct Johannesburg _Daily Express_), writing to _The Times_ on November 4,--"I well recollect seventy-two boys being flogged before breakfast one morning in Krugersdorp gaol for the crime of refusing to work for £2 per month, after being promised £5 by the labour agent." While these facts are well known in Johannesburg, while there are many people who openly admit that they have thrashed the coolie, or ordered him to be thrashed for refusing to do sufficient work, the Rand papers, which are absolutely under the control of the mine owners, denied again and again that flogging took place. It was only Mr. Lyttelton's announcement that flogging must cease that at last compelled them to admit that flogging had taken place. Mr. Lyttelton had himself denied on several occasions that the Chinaman was flogged, and his command therefore that flogging must cease was quite as amazing to the members of the House of Commons as it was to the Rand lords.