Mary Slessor and the evils of drink

Mary Slessor died 100 years ago on the 13 Jan 1915 aged 67.
She was a Scottish missionary to Nigeria.

I checked the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers database to see if she was mentioned and found the following information.

She was called and examined on Friday 21st May 1909 to give evidence for the report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Liquor Trade in Southern Nigeria (Command 4907). 

There are quite a few gruesome facts she mentions in the inquiry and one example is about the ordeal of oil, which she could see from her window every morning.

“Perhaps they had had a big drunk [sic.] the night before, and had all got headaches in the morning, and were accusing their wives of all sorts of things, and they have the ordeal to find out the guilty ones…"Then somebody takes a ladle of boiling oil and pours it into their hands, and of course they run away screaming. .. if the oil burnt down in this way (describing) there was no palaver, but if it did not they were found guilty.”

If they were found guilty “They were tied up with a stake with thorns on it, and with the bones of a tiger, and trussed up close, and their legs tied close together with the stick of thorns in between.” she mentioned “This was a thing of daily occurrence, and that it was caused by drink.”

You can read the full report in the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers database listed under licensed digital collections.  This is freely available to readers in Scotland with a National Library of Scotland readers ticket.  Or you can read the original command paper which can be found at the shelfmark P.P. 1909 vol. ix Cd 4907.