“Expedition against a village behindhand in its (compulsory) supplies; result, slaughter of sixteen persons; among them three women and a boy of five years. Ten carried off, to be prisoners till ransomed; among them a child, who died during the march.” But he is careful not to explain that we are _obliged_ to resort to ransom to collect debts, where the people have nothing to pay with. Families that escape to the woods sell some of their members into slavery and thus provide the ransom. He knows that I would stop this if I could find a less objectionable way to collect their debts.... Mm—here is some more of the consul’s delicacy! He reports a conversation he had with some natives: Q. “How do you know it was the _white_ men themselves who ordered these cruel things to be done to you? These things must have been done without the white man’s knowledge by the black soldiers.” A. “The white men told their soldiers: ‘You only kill _women_; you cannot kill men. You must prove that you kill men.’ So then the soldiers when they killed us” (here he stopped and hesitated and then pointing to ... he said:) “then they ... and took them to the white men, who said: ‘It is true, you have killed _men_.’” Q. “You say this is true? Were many of you so treated after being shot?” All [_shouting out_]: “_Nkoto! Nkoto!_” (“Very many! Very many!”) “There was no doubt that these people were not inventing. Their vehemence, their flashing eyes, their excitement, were not simulated.” Of course the critic had to divulge that; he has no self-respect. All his kind reproach me, although they know quite well that I took no pleasure in punishing the men in that particular way, but only did it as a warning to other delinquents. Ordinary punishments are no good with ignorant savages; they make no impression. [_Reads more sub-heads_] “Devastated region; population reduced from 40,000 to 8,000.” He does not take the trouble to say how it happened. He is fertile in concealments. He hopes his readers and his Congo reformers, of the Lord-Aberdeen-Norbury-John-Morley-Sir-Gilbert-Parker stripe, will think they were all killed. They were not. The great majority of them escaped. They fled to the bush with their families because of the rubber raids, and it was there they died of hunger. Could we help that? [Illustration: On Dress Parade ]