In the country districts justice was not a commodity intended for the Britisher. Many cases of gross abuse, and several of actual murder occurred; and in 1885 the case of Mr. Jas. Donaldson, then residing on a farm in Lydenburg--lately one of the Reform prisoners--was mentioned in the House of Commons, and became the subject of a demand by the Imperial Government for reparation and punishment. He had been ordered by two Boers (one of whom was in the habit of boasting that he had shot an unarmed Englishman in Lydenburg since the war, and would shoot others) to abstain from collecting hut taxes on his own farm; and on refusing had been attacked by them. After beating them off single-handed, he was later on again attacked by his former assailants, reinforced by three others. They bound him with reims (thongs), kicked and beat him with sjamboks (raw-hide whips) and clubs, stoned him, and left him unconscious and so disfigured that he was thought to be dead when found some hours later. On receipt of the Imperial Government's representations, the men were arrested, tried and fined. The fines were stated to have been remitted at once by Government, but in the civil action which followed Mr. Donaldson obtained L500 damages. The incident had a distinctly beneficial effect, and nothing more was heard of the maltreatment of defenceless men simply because they were Britishers. Moreover, with the improvement in trade which followed the gold discoveries of 1885 and 1886 at Moodies and Barberton, the relations between the two races also improved. Frequent intercourse and commercial relations begot a better knowledge of each other, and the fierce hatred of the Britisher began to disappear in the neighbourhood of the towns and the goldfields. In 1886 the wonderful richness of the Sheba Mine in Barberton attracted a good deal of attention, and drew a large number of persons--prospectors, speculators, traders, etc.--to the Transvaal. Before the end of 1887 ten or twelve thousand must have poured into the country. The effect was magical. The revenue which had already increased by 50 per cent. in 1886, doubled itself in 1887, and then there came unto the Boer Government that which they had least expected--ample means to pursue their greater ambitions. But unmixed good comes to few, and with the blessings of plenty came the cares of Government, the problem of dealing with people whose habits, thoughts, ambitions, methods, language, and logic differed utterly from their own. Father Abraham on the London Stock Exchange would not be much more 'at sea' than the peasant farmers of the Volksraad were in dealing with the requirements of the new settlers.