Press Opinions on the "Curse of Central Africa" — cojttd. 



misprint of Wa;zters for the well-known Belgian name of 

 Walters. — A thencewn. 



" Following Mr. Fox-Bourne's ' Civilisation in Congoland,' 

 which we noticed on its appearance, this volume should serve, 

 if anything will, to make English readers realise the appalling 

 state of things that prevails in Central Africa. Captain Burrows 

 was formerly in the service of the Congo State, as was Mr. 

 Edgar Canisius, whose experiences among the cannibals are 

 incorporated with the Captain's narrative. In addition to the 

 verbal record, the imagination of the reader is assisted by 

 reproductions of photographs of barbarities that have taken 

 place. The result is a compilation of descriptive and pictorial 

 horrors that no healthy-minded person would turn to except 

 from a sense of duty. But for all who can do anything to 

 influence public opinion that duty exists, for the driving home 

 of the facts must precede any hope of effective action. With 

 the main heads of the indictment against the Congo Free State 

 those who take any interest in the question are already familiar. 

 Its agents are paid by commission on the rubber and ivory 

 produced from their several districts, and no inconvenient 

 questions are asked or effective restrictions laid down as to the 

 treatment by which the natives are made to serve the most 

 lucrative purpose. Agents guilty of misdemeanours in the 

 Congo are, as Captain Burrows puts it, 'liable to be prosecuted 

 only by a Government which indirectly employs them, and is 

 likely to benefit by their offences' — the result of which ingenious 

 provision for 'justice' can be easily imagined. As a matter of 

 fact the natives are exploited with an unscrupulous barbarity 

 happily without known parallel. The callousness with which 

 white people regard their black fellow-creatures belongs more 

 or less to every nation, but Captain Burrows has come to the 

 conclusion that ' not the worst can be accused of such systematic, 

 comprehensive and cold-blooded misdeeds as those which 

 during the past fifteen years have made of the Congo State a 

 veritable charnel-house.' 



" Of the Belgian officers who have so active and responsible 

 a share in these cruelties. Captain Burrows speaks in quite un- 

 flattering terms, apart from their treatment of the blacks. 

 ' Arrogant,' ' ill-bred,' ' cowardly ' are some of the epithets 

 which he applies to the type ; and they are represented as 

 taking delight in the infliction of pain and humiliation on any 

 one in their power, including their own countrymen. If this 

 be so, it makes it necessary to take with qualification Captain 

 Burrows's frequent suggestion that it is the system rather than 

 the men that must be held responsible for the Congo atrocities ; 



i8 



