206 
A COLONY IN THE MAKING 
CHAP. 
through the administrations of a native detective. 
Having been the victim of a petty theft, I duly reported 
the occurrence. Some days later the head house boy 
approached me in a state of considerable excitement 
and reported that there was a detective concealed in a 
clump of papyrus which stood in the garden next the 
house. Looking out of the window, I observed a red 
tam-o’-shanter which bobbed up and down in the 
centre of the clump, in which position I allowed it to 
remain. After about two hours the wearer of the hat 
emerged and proceeded to arrest and handcuff the 
whole of the coloured portion of the household. 
Though certainly the accomplishment of this feat by 
one savage clad mainly in a red tam-o’-shanter and a 
pair of button boots was in itself admirable, the clues 
found in the papyrus bed seemed insufficient to cause 
the arrest of the whole of our staff and the subsequent 
demoralisation of the midday meal. There is no doubt 
that this was an extreme case of misdirected zeal. 
In 1 909- to the estimated value of stolen property 
reported was £*4,758, of which property to the value 
of £1,988 was recovered. In 1910-11 the figures 
were ,£4,445 and £"1,341, By no process of imagina¬ 
tion can these figures be regarded as satisfactory. 
Practically all stolen property goes into the hands of 
Indian “ fences,” as the police are well aware. These 
receivers of stolen property are, however, so clever as 
almost to defy detection ; a fact that must be at least 
as galling to the police as to those who suffer by their 
depredations. 
The total cost of the police fo 1909 was £46,273, 
which was reduced in 1910 to £"38,923. 
The prisons in the Protectorate are in a thoroughly 
satisfactory condition, and prisoners are so well looked 
