Johannesburg speculator class and others of that category. The rest
assessed official morality at a depreciated value, but hoped the
blemishes might be purged out with other and graver causes for
discontent, if Uitlanders, were only granted some effective
representation in public matters. That appeared to be the only
constitutional remedy. But this continued to be resentfully refused,
even in matters which partook of purely domestic interest, such as
education, municipal privileges, etc. The latter were opposed upon the
specious argument that such extended rights would constitute an
_imperium in imperio,_ and thus a condition incompatible with the safety
and the conservation of complete control.

In the usual intercourse with burghers and officials a great deal of
exasperating and even humiliating experiences had often to be endured,
Uitlanders being treated as an inferior class, with scarcely veiled and
often with arrogant assumption of superiority.

I witnessed a field cornet enjoying free and courteous hospitality at a
Uitlander's house, while being entertained by his host and others in the
vernacular Dutch, peremptorily object to the conversation in English in
which the lady of the house happened to be engaged with another guest at
the further end of the table. His remark was to the effect "that he
could not tolerate English being spoken within his hearing"; this was in
about 1888.

No wonder that under such conditions and ungenial usage Englishmen and
other Uitlanders were put in a resentful mood, and many of them
bethought themselves of methods other than constitutional to improve
their position.