6o6 THE NATIVES IN THE LARGER TOWNS. 



mendation contained in paragraph 253 of the report of the South 

 African Native Affairs Commission. 



One disquieting development amongst Natives employed in 

 lOM'ns is the growing tendency on the part of the younger genera- 

 tion to band themselves together for the commission of crimes, 

 burglary, theft, public violence and for the carrying on of 

 sodomy. Those who are slaves to the latter vice are known 

 among their confederates as o'Nqingili and Izitabane. 



The Nineveh organisation, whose existence is traceable to 

 the influence of Native criminals in the Transvaal prisons, not 

 only carries on sodomy, but furnishes favourable opportunities of 

 crime for its members, who include the most desperate of all 

 Native criminals of the country. They are organised under a 

 system which has borrowed features from the old Zulu regime 

 under which the power of capital punishment is exercised by the 

 " king," but by a ctirious vagary of ideas other features of the 

 organisation are a caricature of our own system of Government. 

 Landdrosts, judges, magistrates, doctors and generals all hold 

 office, but their order of precedence and general share in the 

 scheme of things is determined largely by their own personality 

 and driving power. 



On the Rand the Nineveh gangs are very numerous, being 

 represented in every compound, and although prominent leaders 

 have been hanged 'for ghoulish murders, the authorities do not 

 seem able to stamp out the organisation itself. 



The Bill should be made to include the power to expel Natives 

 proved to be members of any such gangs as I have mentioned, 

 for whom labour colonies or corrective institutions should be 

 formed w-ith a view to the limitation of their future activities. 



The Natives' power of organisation in the past has been 

 developed chiefly in the direction of their patriarchal system of 

 government and the Zulu military power organised by Tshaka. 

 But there is no reason why their undoubted faculty for organisa- 

 tion and the freemasonry which exists between them should not 

 be turned to good account in connection with the social and 

 recreational work which needs to be carried out in the towns. 



Their faculty for recreation is, in their native state, exceed- 

 ingly limited. Whatever can be done to engage them in the pursuit 

 of such amusement as affords healthy exercise or occupation of 

 mind will constitute a gain upon their tendency to drift into vice 

 and intemperance. 



The ordinary round of amusement followed by the un- 

 educated Native is to meet with his fellows over a meal or pot of 

 beer and discuss matters of interest, chiefly courtship and mar- 

 riage. 



Mimic war dances, or competitions in a species of cake-walk 

 with hand-clapping accompaniment, are almost the only forms 

 of exercise indulged in. 



The educated Natives are being provided with recreation 

 grounds, and in some centres there is a growing number of 

 enthusiastic exponents of football and cricket. 



