The men were less assured; they had been educated to understand how they had been swindled, how they had been given the worst of two worlds, and they had enough power to express themselves in a soured officious way; they had died, in so far as they had once been men, inside their European clothes. They didn’t complain, they hinted; they didn’t fight fox what they wanted, they sourly prevaricated. “From what I garnered here and therelittle’ suggested the Creole gossip-writer in the Sierra Leone Daily Mail, “it is not the intention of the Governor and his wife to make Governor’s Lodge, Hill Station, the official residence of the representative of His Majesty the King; those who maintain the view that the environments at Hill Station may influence them to the prejudice of the interest of the people are quite mistaken. In fact, it is considered improbable to entertain such an opinion, and I believe His Excellency will burst into peals of laughter if he were to hear such a thing. I leave it at that.”
That was the nearest they could get to a Petition of Right. They wore uniforms, occupied official positions, went to parties at Government House, had the vote, but they knew all the time they were funny (oh, those peals of laughter!), funny to the heartless prefect eye of the white man. If they had been slaves they would have had more dignity; there is no shame is being ruled by a stranger, but these men had been given their tin shacks, their cathedral, their votes and city councils, their shadow of self-government; they were expected to play the part like white men and the more they copied white men, the more funny it was to the prefects. They were withered by laughter; the more desperately they tried to regain their dignity the funnier they became.
Fashionable Wedding at St. George’s Cathedral
St. George’s Cathedral was the scene of the first fashionable wedding to take place there this year, on Wednesday, the nth instant.
The contracting parties were Miss Agatha Fidelia Araromi Shorunkeh-Sawyerr, fourth daughter of the late Mr. J. C. Shorunkeh-Sawyerr, Barrister-at-law, and Mrs Frances M. Shorunkeh-Sawyerr of “Bells Ebuts”, King Tom’s Peninsula, and Mr. John Buxton Ogunyorbu Logan of the Survey Dept., son of Mr. S. D. Logan, Retired Civil Service Officer.
The bride entered the church at 1.15 p.m. leaning on the arm of her only brother, Mr. J. C. L Shorunkeh-Sawyerr, who subsequently gave her away.
She wore a frock of white lace lined with white satin, and of fall length. Its full court train was of white lace lined with rose-pink satin and it fell from the shoulders. She had on a short veil held in place on her head by a coronet of orange blossoms. She carried a bouquet of natural flowers.
She was followed by five bridesmaids, the Misses Molakι Shorunkeh-Sawyerr (bride’s sister) and
Annie Macaulay, being the chief. They wore salmon-pink lace frocks with georgette coatees of the same colour with white straw hats with pink bands. The others were the Misses Fitzjohn, Olivette Stuart, and Eileen Williams. These wore pink georgette frocks and pink hats. The hymn Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost, was sung as the bridal procession moved slowly up the nave. The full choir of the cathedral, of which the bridegroom’s father is the Dux, was present, and Mr. A. H. Stuart, F.G.C.O., the organist, presided at his organ.
Immediately after the ceremony, the guests repaired to the Crown Bottling Restaurant for Cake and Wine. This function was presided over by Mr. A. E. Tuboku-Metzger, M.A., J.P., an old friend of the bride’s late father.
Here six toasts were proposed and responded to. After this the company broke up, some going to the bridegroom’s parents in Waterloo Street, and others to the bride’s at King Tom’s for more solid refreshments.
About 6 P.M. Mr. and Mrs. John B. Logan left for their honeymoon somewhere on the Wilkinson Road.
Before leaving them there, we wish them connubial bliss, and the best of luck.
Sometimes it was almost Firbank, it recalled the Mouth family forcing their way into the highest social circles of the city of Cuna-Cuna, but alas! the smell of the fish laid fourteen deep in the roadway, the flowers withered ^and everlasting in the small public gardens, the low church hymns did not belong to Cuna-“Cuna, full of charming roses, full of violet shadows, full of music, full of love, Cuna… !” Wilkinson and Waterloo streets and the Crown Bottling Restaurant were a poor exchange for Carmen Street, the Avenue Messalina, the Grand Savannah Hotel.
Freetown’s excitements are very English, as Dakar’s are very French; the Governor-General’s garden party, where white and black, keeping sedulously apart on either side the beds, inspected the vegetables to the sound of a military band : “Look, he’s really managed to grow tomatoes. Darling, let’s go and see the cabbages. Are those really lettuces?”; the Methodist Synod : “Notices of motions fall thick and fast. We pass over some questions in the agenda meanwhile. We sit intently waiting to hear the Missionary Committee’s letter, everyone is attentive, we listen, the air is still, we can hear the dropping of a pin”; literature from the Freetown Ededroko Store which advertised, “Novels, Works of Hall Caine, Marie Corelli, R. L. Stevenson, Bertha Clay, etc., e.g., by Corelli : Worm-wood, Sorrows of Satan, Barabbas, Vendetta, Thelma, Innocent; by Caine, The Deemster, A Son of Hagar, The Woman Thou Gavest Me; by Stevenson : Treasure Island, The Black Arrow; by Clay : A Woman’s Temptation, Married for her Beauty, Beyond Pardon.”
The contributions of Dorothy Violetta Mallatson to the local daily Press vividly summarise the evangelical fun of Freetown : “Looking behind us, Christmas is just round the corner and out of sight. Outspreading away into the distance there is sunshine, sports, and all the outdoor joys we love so well. For the school girl or boy there are school sports to take away the dullness and flatness of the schoolroom life. Then there is the Prize Distribution and Thanksgiving Service. For older people there is the All-Comers Tennis Competition and there is coming up shortly many dances and concerts. For instance, there is the Danvers Dance on the 8th of February, and the Play and Dance of the Ladies of the National Congress of British West Africa which comes on the 15th proximo’
It would be so much more amusing if it was all untrue, a fictitious skit on English methods of colonisation. But one cannot continue long to find the Creole’s painful attempt at playing the white man funny; it is rather like the chimpanzee’s tea-party, the joke is all on one side. Sometimes, of course, the buffoonery is conscious, and then the degradation is more complete. A few Creoles make money out of their prefects, by deliberately playing the inferior, the lower boy: R. Lumpkin alias Bungie is the most famous example. He has become a character. Tourists are taken to see his shop. You are advised by every white man you meet, in the long bar at the Grand, in the small bar at the City, on board ship : “You must go to Bungie He is the proprietor of the British-African Workmen Store and he styles himself ‘Builder for the Dead, Repairer for the living’. This is one of his advertisements: