rned. Representation was
secured for the Chamber of Mines upon one of the licensing bodies,
and here, too, a very appreciable result followed. During Mr.
Esselen's term of office all went well as far as the public were
concerned, but influences were soon at work to undermine the two
reforming officials. It was represented to the President that Mr.
Trimble had once been in the British army; that he was even then a
subject of the Queen, and entitled to a pension from the Cape
Government. The canteen interest on the goldfields, playing upon the
prejudices of the Boers, represented that this was unfitting the
dignity of the Republic. The President, who was too shrewd to be
caught with such chaff, was perfectly ready to support them for the
sake of the liquor interest, which for him constitutes a very useful
electioneering and political agency throughout the country. Mr.
Esselen was sent for, and it was represented to him by the President
that the employment of a British subject in such a responsible office
as that of chief detective was repugnant to the burghers. The reply
was that it was competent for the Executive to naturalize Mr. Trimble
at once and so remove the objection, the Government having power in
special cases to dispense with the conditions of the Naturalization
Law--a power frequently exercised in the case of their Hollander
friends. The President, in reply, stated that it could not be done,
and he appealed to Mr. Esselen to select a man of another
nationality--'a Frenchman, German, or even an American'--this last
being a concession wrung from him by Mr. Esselen's soothing
suggestion that the Chief of Police should be familiar with the
language of the criminal classes. The hitch was maintained for some
months, but finally the influences on the side of the President
became too strong, and when it became clear that the many months
of laborious work and self-sacrifice which had been given in the
interests of reform were to be nullified by the appointment of a
creature who would connive at every breach of the law, Mr. Esselen
decided to stand or fall by his subordinate, the result being a
triumph for the President.

In Mr. Esselen's place there was appointed as State Attorney Dr.
Coster, a Hollander, who however declined to have anything to do with
the organization of the police; and in Mr. Trimble's stead reappeared
the individual whom he had superseded and whose services had been
dispensed with.{15} The triump