The Married Women’s Property Act may not be embodied in clauses and sections; statutes of Parliament are not codified and docketed; jurisprudence is not packed in dusty volumes, one contradicting another; but the principles of justice and common-sense, blended with the outlook of the people on what is right and proper and fair, mark the judgments of the men set up to decide among them. Assessment and collection of taxes have been explained in Chapter VII. I went to the Beit-el-Mal and saw the accumulated revenue in boxes holding copper and nickel penny coins, bags of guinea corn—taxes paid in kind—neatly piled and stored to be sold at suitable opportunity—and boxes containing silver coins, which were interned in an inner chamber, locked and dark. Hanging up ready for inspection at any moment by those empowered to examine were satchels in which had been put counterfoil receipts, all numbered and in regulated order, and suspended near was the book specifying what should be in the building and the general total. The descriptions were written in Hausa, but with Roman characters and figures. The intelligent Fulani and Hausa people have been trained by British officials to modify their former system to this extent. I was also formally invited by the Resident to accompany the Acting Governor of the Protectorate on his visit to the native prison and on that occasion peeped round the corner inside for a few seconds. Though I believe the prison is excellently kept, I should have liked to have gone more privately when there would have been opportunity for asking questions. Quite a different place, outside the city, which I should also have been glad to look over was the school for Mallamai (Mohamedan scholars) and Chief’s sons at Nassarawa. But for some reason the aid to general investigation at Kano, which I had a right to expect, was proffered in such a way that nobody with self-respect could use it, and having to set about seeing things by other means, so much time was occupied that the Nassarawa school was one of the places which had to be cut from the programme. The establishment is based on the lines of that at Bo, Sierra Leone, which was copied from the one in French Senegal. [Illustration: THE ROYAL COURTS OF JUSTICE. (See page 114.)] [Illustration: THE NATIVE TREASURY, KNOWN AS THE BEIT-EL-MAL. (See page 115.)] Besides the central, native Government, Kano City has also a rough form of municipality. It is divided into wards, each under a Wardmaster, responsible to the Emir. The streets are kept scrupulously clean from refuse. That must be placed in stated spots and is removed daily.