Thinking black; 22 years without a break in the long grass of Central ...

142 THINKING BLACK
bility." Verdict for the plaintilff, because law is not logic
and logic is not law. But worse than all this comes a
long string of cases, each plea amounting to the effrontery
that it is wrong to affirm the right, the accused's error
being that he made no error. A man named ''Eiver"
has blood on his arm and a passer-by draws his attention
to this fact, and in he goes among the meshes of the legal
drag-net. Penalty : Mr. River must be paid for the
accused's error in not committing an error. Another
negro of the same ilk finds a legal grievance in the fact
that truth has too much sting in it. Crossing the river
with a fellow-traveller, a leech clings to his leg, and the
lawsuit arises out of this friendly and kindly reminder
that the leech was clinging to him. Leech indeed ! the
real blood-sucker is this litigious black who cries. Give
Give! Of the same sort is this third man; "Scar"
(Jdukofu) his name and scar the subject of his legal action.
He is an old warrior, has a healed gash on his body, but
instead of being proud of it as a kind of Marengo medal
on which Napoleon wrote the lone words, " I was there,"
—instead of this, he runs a man into " the judgment
circle " because he congratulated him on his cured wound.
** Why mention the scar at all ? " snapped the warrior ; " 'tis
mine, not yours." Don't ask the why of some of these
lawsuits ; could mortal man tell ? Here is an individual
who invited another to eat porridge that has lain over-
night—why make a lawsuit out of that ? Here is another
passing a few graves in the grass, and he goes over the
names of the various occupants of the little graveyard