"Of Course No Attempt To Identify These Oils In The Quantity Sent,
Viz., 632 C.C. (One Bottle) Was Made.
The ethers are returned as
ethyl acetate, but from fractional distillation amyl acetate was
found to be present.
"I have the honour to be, etc.,
(Signed) "G. H. ROBERTSON.
"Fellow of the Chemical Society,
"Associate of the Institute of Chemistry."
In a subsequent letter Mr. Robertson observed that he had been
"assisted in making the above analysis by an expert in the chemistry
of alcohols, who said that the present sample differed in no
material particulars from, and was neither more nor less deleterious
to health than, gin purchased in different parts of London and
submitted to analysis."
In addition to this analysis I have also one of Messrs. Peters' gin,
equally satisfactory, and as Van Hoytima and Peters are the two
great suppliers of the gin that goes to West Africa, I think the
above is an answer to the "poison" statements, and should be
sufficient evidence against it for all people who are not themselves
absolute teetotalers. Absolute teetotalers are definite-minded
people, and one respects them more than one does those who do not
hold with teetotalism for themselves, but think it a good thing for
other people, and moreover it is of no use arguing with them because
they say all alcohol is poison, and won't appreciate any evidence to
the contrary, so "palaver done set"; but a large majority of those
who attack, or believe in the rectitude of the attack on, the
African liquor traffic are not teetotalers and so should be capable
of forming a just opinion.
My personal knowledge of the district where most of the liquor goes
in - the Oil Rivers - has been gained in Duke Town, Old Calabar. I
have been there four separate times, and last year stayed there
continuously for some months during a period in which if Duke Town
had felt inclined to go on the bust, it certainly could have done
so; for the police and most of the Government officials were away at
Brass in consequence of the Akassa palaver, and those few who were
left behind and the white traders were down with an epidemic of
malarial typhoid. But Duke Town did nothing of the kind. I used to
be down in the heart of the town, at Eyambas market by Prince
Archebongs's house, night after night alone, watching the devil-
makings that were going on there, and the amount of drunkenness I
saw was exceedingly small. I did the same thing at the adjacent
town of Qwa. My knowledge of Bonny, Bell, and Akkwa towns,
Libreville, Lembarene, Kabinda, Boma, Banana, Nkoi, Loanda, etc., is
extensive and peculiar, and I have spent hours in them when the
whole of the missionary and Government people have been safe in
their distant houses; so had the evils of the liquor traffic been
anything like half what it is made out to be I must have come across
it in appalling forms, and I have not.
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