THE BLACKS AND WHITES IN SOUTH AFRICA.
LTO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.")
some one of your travelled readers answer a very simple question ? I see in all manner of well-informed news- papers that a black peasant in South Africa makes his wives work but does not work himself. Everybody says so, and therefore it must be true ; and yet it is palpably false, for where do the women come from ? The sexes in all countries are born equal in number, and general polygamy is therefore physically impossible ; yet everybody asserts it of the black
tiller of the soiL Why P—I am, Sir, &c., M.
[We have always understood that the young natives—i.e, the "braves "—since they cannot marry till they have enough money to purchase a wife or wives, remain for several years in a separate bachelor class. Presumably many of these die before they earn the money or cattle required to achieve matrimony. The girls, however, are always purchasable in marriage, and do not have to wait for several years before they can marry. Again, they are not exposed to so many dangers as the men. Therefore, we presume, there is a suffi- cient surplus of women to give a very considerable number of men two wives.—En. Spectator.]
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