THE BAHAMA ISLANDS 507 



local justices."" Thus was the magisterial establishment cleared of the dead 

 weight of incompetent justices and placed on the basis on which it remained 

 throughout the remainder of the apprenticeship period. From this time 

 forward, all the reports on its operations were almost without exception favor- 

 able to its efficiency and its competency to deal with the problem of apprentice 

 labor in this Colony. The difficulty from the beginning had been that on ac- 

 count of the lack of training in the performance of judicial functions, and from 

 identification with local interests, the local magistrates were incapable of 

 performing these peculiar magisterial duties. They were never able to com- 

 mand the respect and the confidence of the employers or the apprentices. Upon 

 these officers depended in great part the success of the system by which the 

 great body of ex-slaves were being educated for the state of freedom. To their 

 disinterestedness, their impartiality, their devotion to duty, and their general 

 efficiency was due the harmonizing of the jarring elements, the preservation of 

 peace, and the prevention of injustice, discontent, disorder, and lawlessness 

 throughout the Colony. 



Duties of Special Magistrates. 



It was the duty of these magistrates to adjust the disturbed coloni;il 

 society to the new relations into which its people were entering, and to assist 

 the classes in every way to live up to the regulations imposed on them. The 

 white inhabitant, accustomed to a regime in which implicit obedience to his 

 command was the rule, was unwilling to give cognizance to the changed rela- 

 tions in which the late slave was to have partial command of himself; on the 

 other hand the apprentice was fearful for a time that this change to apprentice- 

 ship was not wbat the King had intended to grant him, and that the local gov- 

 ernment had leagued itself with the late slave-masters to deprive him of the 

 boon of immediate and complete freedom. Everywhere the magistrates visited, 

 the first and most important duty was to explain the nature of the new relations 

 and to set matters to rights between the masters and the apprentices.''' There 

 were in many parts absurd conceptions of what the new relations amounted to. 

 This fact was due in no small degree to the prevailing irregularities."' The 

 local justices added to, not lessened, the confusion."' The officials strove to 

 impress on all classes that the changed conditions were merely a preparation 



™ Sess. P., 1836, 49, p. 516, Ds. of Lord Glenelg. 



*'' Sess. P., 1836, 49, p. 532, circular instructions to the special justices. 



^''^ hoc. cit. 



'■''^ Colebrooke to Aberdeen, No. 60. 



