Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1894 — HORRIBLE CRUELTY. [ARTICLE]

HORRIBLE CRUELTY.

The “Smelling-Out” Ceremony of the Zulus of South Africa. “Smelling-out” is.one of the customs among the Zulus of South Africa and is practiced in the Matabele nation, now at war with the English. This is the course of “smelling out:” Somebody dies, or perhaps the King or one of nis wives suffers from mysterious pains, or a child is born deformed, or a murrain breaks out among the royal oxen. The witch doctors and doctresses are consulted and declare the evil to be the work of an “umtagati” or wizard. Then they proceed to name the wizard, who, by art magic, has contrived the ill in question, and who, oddly enough, very often happens to be a man rich in cattle, of whom the King or chief is anxious to be rid. The circle is formed, the doctors and doctresses, bedizened in skins and bones, go through their antics and ceremonies, calling on the shades of their forefathers and consulting the spirits by means of bones, which they tnrow like dice till at length the name of the guilty person is miraculously revealed to them. Perhaps he is sitting there in the circle before them safe in his innocence and believing himself to be a trusted servant and soldier of tho King when the isanusi creeps up to him touches him with the fateful wand, denouncing him as the man whoso spirit thought the evil thing. From the touch of that wand there is no appeal and for tho most part the victim dies within the hour. He is led away and his neck is twisted or his brains dashed out, and his name becomes a reproach. That same day also the King’s slayers start for the kraal of the muidered man, where he may have five or six wives and fifteen or twenty children, together with dependents and slaves. At night, when folk sleep heavily, they surrpund it and set it on fire. The victims rush out to fall upon the assegai or be cast back living into the flames. And so with the death of all ends the very common tragedy of a “smelling-out.” pillions of Dollars Sent to China. Congressman Hilborn, of California, delivered his maiden speech at Washington last week on the subject of the Chinese in this country. All the money they make here, he said, they send back to China. Since their first settlement in Califcrnia, from that State alone they have sent $300,000,000. “In 1880,” said Mr. Hilborn, “the total Chinese population of the United States was 105,465; in California it was 75,132. In 1890 the total population was 107,475, showing a total gain of population in the United States of 2,010. The Chinese population in California is 72,724, showing a falling off in our particular State They seen! to have turned their faces eastward. In New York in 1870 there were only 29 Chinamen; in 1860, 909; in 1890, 2,935.’ In Pennsylvania in 1870 there were 13; in 1880, 148; in 1890,