“Government encouragement of inter-tribal slave-traffic. The monstrous fines levied upon villages tardy in their supplies of foodstuffs compel the natives to sell their fellows—and children—to other tribes in order to meet the fine.” “A father and mother forced to sell their little boy.” “Widow forced to sell her little girl.” [_Irritated_] Hang the monotonous grumbler, what would he have me do! Let a widow off merely because she is a widow? He knows quite well that there is nothing much left, now, _but_ widows. I have nothing against widows, as a class, but business is business, and I’ve got to live, haven’t I, even if it does cause inconvenience to somebody here and there? [_Reads_] “Men intimidated by the torture of their wives and daughters. (To make the men furnish rubber and supplies and so get their captured women released from chains and detention.) The sentry explained to me that he caught the women and brought them in (chained together neck to neck) by direction of his employer.” “An agent explained that he was forced to catch women in preference to men, as then the men brought in supplies quicker; but he did not explain how the children deprived of their parents obtained their own food supplies.” “A file of 15 (captured) women.” “Allowing women and children to die of starvation in prison.” [_Musing_] Death from _hunger_. A lingering, long misery that must be. Days and days, and still days and days, the forces of the body failing, dribbling away, little by little—yes, it must be the hardest death of all. And to see food carried by, every day, and you can have none of it! Of course the little children cry for it, and that wrings the mother’s heart.... [_A sigh_] Ah, well, it cannot be helped; circumstances make this discipline necessary. [_Reads_] “The crucifying of sixty women!” How stupid, how tactless! Christendom’s goose flesh will rise with horror at the news. “Profanation of the sacred emblem!” That is what Christendom will shout. Yes, Christendom will buzz. It can hear me charged with half a million murders a year for twenty years and keep its composure, but to profane the Symbol is quite another matter. It will regard this as serious. It will wake up and want to look into my record. Buzz? Indeed it will; I seem to hear the distant hum already.... It was wrong to crucify the women, clearly wrong, manifestly wrong, I can see it now, myself, and am sorry it happened, sincerely sorry. I believe it would have answered just as well to skin them.... [_With a sigh_] But none of us thought of that; one cannot think of everything; and after all it is but human to err.