sentence of hard labour, to work in the Residency of Bantam, as elsewhere. Thereupon he received a refusal, with the observation that he had a right to put to work on his grounds the persons who had been condemned by him, as a magistrate, to “labour on the public roads.” Havelaar knew this very well; but he had never made use of this right, neither at Rankas-Betong, nor at Amboina, nor at Menado, nor at Natal. It shocked him to have his garden kept in good order as a fine for small errors, and he had often asked himself how the Government could permit stipulations to remain, of a nature to tempt the functionary to punish small excusable offences, not in proportion to the offences themselves, but in proportion to the condition or the extension of his estate. The very idea, that he who was punished, even justly, might think that self-interest was hidden under the sentence pronounced, made him, where he was obliged to punish, always give preference to the system, otherwise very objectionable, of confinement.
And it was from this cause that little Max could not play in the garden, and that Tine had not so much pleasure from the flowers as she had anticipated on the day of her arrival at Rankas-Betong. Of course, this and suchlike small misfortunes had no influence on the minds of a family that possessed so much material to procure itself a happy domestic life; and it was not to be ascribed to these trifles when Havelaar sometimes entered with a clouded brow,
