This Is A Dutch
Institution In This Part Of The World, And Seems To Work Well.
It
is a great boon to traders, who can do nothing in these thinly-
populated regions without trusting goods to agents and petty
dealers, who frequently squander them away in gambling and
debauchery.
The lower classes are almost all in a chronic state
of debt. The merchant trusts them again and again, till the
amount is something serious, when he brings them to court and has
their services allotted to him for its liquidation. The debtors
seem to think this no disgrace, but rather enjoy their freedom
from responsibility, and the dignity of their position under a
wealthy and well-known merchant. They trade a little on their own
account, and both parties seem to get on very well together. The
plan seems a more sensible one than that which we adopt, of
effectually preventing a man from earning anything towards paying
his debts by shutting him up in a jail.
My own servants were three in number. Ali, the Malay boy whom I
had picked up in Borneo, was my head man. He had already been
with me a year, could turn his hand to anything, and was quite
attentive and trustworthy. He was a good shot, and fond of
shooting, and I had taught him to skin birds very well. The
second, named Baderoon, was a Macassar lad; also a pretty good
boy, but a desperate gambler. Under pretence of buying a house
for his mother, and clothes, for himself, he had received four
months' wages about a week before we sailed, and in a day or two
gambled away every dollar of it.
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