Evening all With the list-owner's permission, I would like to announce that HF Heese's "Reg en Onreg: Kaapse regspraak in die agtiende eeu" - which ought to appeal to genealogists and historians alike - is now available in electronic form from the www.cdbooks-r-us.com website Over the past decades there has been a renewed interest in the early Cape society and its criminal history. The daily life of that era can be reconstructed from court cases, especially with respect to slaves. The author notes that the court records of the Cape sketch a somewhat negative and unflattering picture of the burghers, the Khoikhoi, San, Khoisan, slaves, Chinees and free blacks. This is mainly due to the fact that it was those who fell within the jurisdiction of the VOC's sphere of influence who were brought before the courts. Other groups who did not fall within the VOC sphere did not appear before the Court of Justice. If slaves or Khoikhoi appeared before the court, they normally did not have representation from within their own ranks or social status. They could only hope for an impartial verdict. The fact that a court official was supposedly impartial was often of very little comfort to slaves - they were, after all, a group that had been denied most of their rights or freedoms. Reading the court cases the reader is reminded of the harsh and sometimes gruesome convictions and sentences imposed on criminals. The purpose of Heese's book is to highlight - through the listing of court cases - the lives of those who seldom feature in other documents. In this sense the book is of interest to those interested in the cultural history of that period. Genealogists should also find much of interest in the book, as the documents provide information such as the dates of death of murdered burghers as well as information about "voorzoons" and "voordogters" who do not always appear in genealogical works. These documents also help to explain the "absence" of certain individuals from public life while they were serving sentences on Robben Island. The major portion of the book is dedicated to a listing of the names of those convicted of crimes. The lists include not only the names but also the crime of which they were convicted, the sentence, date of sentence and the relevant CJ reference. More information is available on the www.dcbooks-r-us.com website. Any correspondence should be addressed to the above email address and not to the list. Kind Regards Colin Pretorius