34 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



sterile, he could, according to European laws, marry 

 no other woman as long as she lived. It is a fact, 

 significant of the futility of legislation to control 

 social customs, that shortly afterwards the legitimate 

 spouse disappeared in a mysterious way. 



The negroes have their rough rules of hygiene, 

 which are now forbidden by the rules of the white 

 man. The Batetela north of the Sankuru river 

 remember a terrible epidemic that raged in their 

 country some thirty years ago. As far as I can make 

 out it was akin to cerebro-spinal-meningitis. All 

 the afflicted were sent into the forest, and if they 

 showed themselves in the villages they were killed. 

 Food was deposited for them at a certain place ; 

 when they no longer came to fetch it they were con- 

 sidered dead and duly lamented. The epidemic not 

 only disappeared, but it never spread over more than 

 a limited area. The same was the case with sleeping 

 sickness ; it existed before the white man arrived, 

 but never, got a chance of spreading until the Euro- 

 pean Governments put down the ancient and barbaric 

 but none the less effectual custom. Since then half 

 of the population of Uganda has perished from it. 

 Among the Baluba, even now, any person who is 

 known to have given syphilis to another is executed. 



Criminals — by whom I mean people who habitually 

 committed larcenies, or were guilty of some serious 

 crime, were sold as slaves to a strange tribe. Instead, 

 therefore, of being a burden to the law-abiding popu- 

 lation as our criminals are, they were made use of to 

 compensate their victims, to whom the purchase 



