Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/263

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  • lington, Iowa. By-the-way, "Burlington" is a popular

word in the English colonies, for some reason. In Wellington and Sydney there are handsome restaurants called "The Burlington;" somewhere else I saw a big arcade of the same name, and in London a monthly magazine is called "The Burlington.". . . All printed matter in the Transvaal intended for the public, such as railway time-tables, is printed in German as well as in English. Which is not surprising, since the Boers outnumber the English more than three to one. . . . An American negro would scream his head off in Johannesburg. The negro here is not allowed to ride on the street railways, nor is he allowed on the sidewalks. A system of Jim Crow cars was tried when the street railways were first built, but the blacks wanted to ride with the whites, so they were ordered to keep off the cars altogether. A negro servant may ride on a street car with his master, but he must sit in a modest place pointed out by the conductor. A negro servant may live in quarters in his master's yard, but if he has a family, and works for himself, he must live in Blacktown. . . . The Boers were more strict with the blacks than are the English. On Sundays, the streets are black with natives, as there are more than 100,000 in Johannesburg, but not a great many are seen on week days; in the enormous crowds I saw on the streets last night, I remarked the absence of negroes. . . . The white men here usually speak highly of the honesty of the blacks. If the blacks find a dishonest one, they promptly report him to the "boss.". . . A thing that soon attracts your attention in Johannesburg is the great number of negroes who own