A single incident, of no great proportions in itself, must be given a separate mention among the causes of estrangement between the two civilized races in South Africa. It was not so much the cause of a new line of cleavage as it was the wedge driven to the head into one of the existing lines. In 1815 a Boer was accused of seriously injuring a native servant. When the authorities sent out a small force to arrest the accused his neighbors rallied to his defense, and a brief resistance was offered to the serving of the warrant. The uprising—a mere neighborhood affair—was easily suppressed. Several prisoners were taken, six of whom were condemned to death. Five of the condemned were hanged, and their women—who had fought beside them—were compelled to stand by and witness the execution. Some promise of reprieve had been made by the governor, Lord Charles Somerset. The crowd of Africanders stood about the gallows on the fatal day, hoping to the last moment that their friends would be spared, but no reprieve came. The tragedy was completed, and the story of it went into the Africander folklore, becoming, and remaining to this day, a part of the nursery education of every Africander child. They named the ridge on which the execution took place, “Schlachter’s Nek,” which, being interpreted, is “Butcher’s Ridge.” Canon Knox Little, in his late work on South Africa, is authority for the statements that Lord Somerset actually reprieved the condemned men, that the reprieve reached the Field-Cornet appointed to carry out the execution in good time to save the victims, and that the Field-Cornet executed the death warrant having the governor’s reprieve in his pocket, being actuated to the murderous deed by private spite. The Canon adds that the Field-Cornet was so sure that he, himself, would be punished for his iniquity that he committed suicide. It is to be devoutly hoped that the learned Canon is well informed both as to the governor’s purpose of mercy and the Cornet’s motive for suicide. Whatever the interior facts may have been, they were unknown to the Africanders. The cruel act—justified by the doers as a piece of necessary firmness—caused bitter and widespread resentment at the time, and continues to foster anti-British feeling among all the Dutch of South Africa. Another cause that made for disruption was an unwarrantable and most unwise interference of the British authorities with two cherished and guaranteed rights of the colonists—the old system of local government, and the use of the Dutch language in official documents and legal proceedings. In the forms of government changes were made which greatly reduced the share formerly enjoyed by the people in the control of their local affairs. The substituting of English for Dutch in official and legal documents was a still more serious grievance to a people of whom not more than one-sixth understood English.