Inml-hious Ekfkcts of Civilisation on tiik Nativk Races. 267 



The brewing of Kafir beer in town would appear, wliilst intended 

 primarily as a special treat for the maker thereof, to serve even 

 a more useful purpose as a means of increasing the lessening revenue 

 of the country by the fines inflicted in the magistrate's court. The 

 Kafir is well provided with food in the country, and in this re- 

 spect, as in the others mentioned, is far better off than is his more 

 civilised brethren. He, unfortunately for himself, has in most cases 

 no master to proviile him with rations, and has to fall back upon his 

 own devices. He may procure his food at a Kafir eating-house, where 

 a bowl of soup and some white bread furnishes him with a meal of 

 poor \alue as regaixls nourishment, or he may feed at home on the 

 oftal of the beasts of the slaughter-houses, on coffee, perhaps condensed 

 milk and again on white bread. This great fondness for fine white 

 bread on the part of the native is unfortunate ; for many reasons it is 

 distinctly inferior to the whole meal loaf. The present age has been, 

 well and ti'uly described as the "great pap age" as regards food, and 

 the food of the present day no longer requiring the amount of mastica- 

 tion that the food of our ancestors did, the result is that the teeth 

 tend early to decay, and to become organs no longer required ; the 

 native even, at one time blessed with a splendid set of teeth, now 

 shares with the European in that most deplorable spread of dental 

 caries so universally prevalent amongst the civilised races of South 

 Africa, whereby the teeth in so many instances are found to be 

 decaying immediately after tlieir eruption. The town native is unable 

 in most cases to procure cow's milk for himself and family, and is 

 obliged to fall back upon the ver}' pooi- substitute of condensed milk, 

 and to use tea or coffee, which he would be much better without. That 

 alcoholism is in any way, at pi'esent, one of the evil results of civilisa- 

 tion is not likely, owing to the restrictive effects of legislation. A 

 native may occasional!}- become intoxicated, but is unable in most 

 instances to procure alcohol in sufficiently large cjuantities to do him- 

 self any permanent harm. It is doubtful if the town native gets food 

 which either in quantity or quality can compare with that of the 

 country dweller. With a smaller amount of food he has to do more 

 work, for, however great his disinclination may be to excess of it, the 

 manual labour of the town is greater than that done on the farms. 



We have now briefly considered the injurious factors of civilisa- 

 tion acting upon the native under the three headings of dwelling, 

 clothing and food, and it remains to briefly sum up the effects of these 

 unfavourable causes. I have not i-eferred to the result of education, 

 though it is an intei'esting point whether, much in the same w^ay as 

 great damage is done to a muscle when a strain is thrown upon it in 

 excess of its capability, so great damage may not equally be done to a 

 brain which is being strained beyond its natural capacity. The result 

 of the native coming into contact with civilisation is an enfeeblement 

 of his physique, a great increase of disease, with lessened power of 

 resistance, and a vastly increased mortality both in adults and children. 

 I do not refer to diseases of occupation such as miner's phthisis (ji- 

 pneumonia, but to the diseases which occur in the Grahamstown loca- 



