dines. If he can he gets off for the afternoon; then he lounges into Kingston and plumes himself on the side walks to the admiration of the black and yellow girls. No sun has any terrors for your true West Indian soldier. His skull is thick enough even without the protection of his smart undress cap. His amusement is similar to that of an English Tommy in any garrison town, except that he does not drink so much. He is the idol of the populace; especially on the afternoon of the Sabbath, when, after Church is over, he is permitted to parade at large in the brilliant full-dress uniform of his regiment. Scarlet and yellow or scarlet and white, zouave jackets, and white or yellow spats, his get up is that of a French Zouave West Indianised; and he is the King of feminine Jamaica. He is popular among men and women alike, since the civilian men are conscious of a reflected grandeur when in company with a soldier in full dress. A military comrade helps them with the women, just as one returned yeoman peopled a smokeroom with heroes during our South African War. The black Tommy is paid his shilling a day, just as though he were a redcoated white man. He was recruited in some West Indian island, or in Western Africa in the district Sierra Leone,—he cares not where, for now his home is the cool barrack-room,—and he is quite content to stand before a few thousand people as a soldier of the King. Generally he has at least one silver medal to show that he has heard the music of the Martini fired in anger. He has fought savage races in lands where a white man has no right to go, and he knows that he has his value. He is not jealous of the draft of the white British regiment which, for some unknown reason, is always to be found in the hills somewhere about Newcastle; he is not jealous because he is too conscious of superiority. Could a white regiment have marched in the full glare of the noon sun through Ashanti and not dropped a man? Could a white man pierce jungle and fight through malarious tangled undergrowth, wading slimy swamps, swimming rushing rivers, and live? Can any company of white soldiers march with the swing of a West Indian Regiment when the black pipers shriek the quick-step?
When the white men think they can, and say so, then West India rises by half companies and ties service razors on stout sticks of ebony, and there is riot in the land of perpetual sunshine. Black men are mauled with heavy belts in the fashion of the British Infantry, and white men stagger home gashed with razor cuts and faint for lack of blood. When the civil war is over, each side, conscious of victory, willingly forgives and for several months forgets. Then peace is found among the huts at Newcastle, and sweet peace amidst the tents of the plains.
The black troops insist that it is necessary that their women should be treated with respect, even deference, by their white brothers in arms. This the white Tommy has not yet learned to do. Possibly the lesson is difficult owing to the infinite extent of the acquaintanceship with feminine Jamaica peculiar to the West Indian regiments. Every lady is a friend of some soldier’s friend, if she is not his sister, aunt, wife, or mother. So trouble sometimes springs from this source. Then it is out belts and razors until the officers intervene. Shots have been fired, but this is unusual. And the result of the court-martial offers no encouragement to would-be marksmen. As a rule the Tommies, black and white, mix and fraternise as well as may be expected. Each has a large respect, well mixed with a great contempt, for his alien brother. Each serves the same white King whose dominion over all the earth is unquestioned. The King is the common sentiment to which hangs the brotherhood of the British soldiers, white and black.
On the other hand the Jamaican police are not popular with the people of the island. The uniform they wear is not sufficiently striking; there is no great blaze of colour—no suggestion of power or rank or beauty. A plain white tunic and dark blue trousers with a red stripe, a simple white helmet and plain black leather boots, make up the uniform of the Constabulary. It is impossible for a negro to respect such a costume, or to be proud of a police so uniformed. So the people have come to look upon the policemen as workers; men made for use, and not turned out for the sake of ornamenting a town already bright and picturesque enough. And it may be that this is the reason why the Jamaican constable is regarded as a judicial potentate—a man whose word is law—a person to be avoided, even feared. The presence of a policeman stops the noisy jabber or a street crowd of fruit-sellers; his approach melts a group of excited quarrellers; his uplifted hand stems the tide of rushing traffic—just as it is in England. The police are efficient and unpopular. The constable alone among the inhabitants of Kingston does not lounge and laugh and chatter. If he smiles it is with an air of conscious superiority. The mouths of the men are curved downwards in the form of a perpetual sneer. The law cannot be merry; the limbs of the law may not be humanly happy.
The Jamaican police force is well organised and very efficient. There are inspectors and sub-inspectors, staff-sergeants and sergeants and constables, and above all one white Chief. Most of the senior officers are white men; the rank and file are black and brown, and yellow and dusky white. It is on the rank and file that the work of Government falls. A plain constable in Jamaica is a far more powerful man than any white-gloved, long-sworded police inspector in England. Every regulation beat in the island of rivers is a courthouse, presided over by an impartial and all powerful policeman-judge. Fifty times a day he will be called upon to arbitrate in matters of great delicacy. It may be that there is a doubt in the minds of two women as to the ownership of a valuable article of diet or furniture. The policeman weighs the evidence of witnesses and pronounces judgment. He will, in cases of real necessity, administer the oath to people whose mere word is open to doubt, and he makes people swear, Scotch fashion, with uplifted hands.
Round such street-corner courts small crowds are allowed to congregate, and respectfully listen to the words of one whose knowledge of police-court ritual stands him in good stead. I have heard a policeman restore to a woman that good name which the jealousy of a chattering neighbour had flung to the four winds; the same man afterwards settled a knotty point in regard to the freshness of a heap of fish which a despondent purchaser pleaded were bad. This was a serious case; the constable smelt the fish and handled them with the reverence of an usher for a barrister’s brief bag. In this instance the judgment of the constable gave satisfaction to one man and made him unpopular with a crowd. It was openly suggested that he had received a promise of largess from the man whose case he upheld. As a body the force has a Spartan-like love for unpopularity, born of the exhibition of unbending power in performing their illegal office of judge and jury. I once toured the side streets of the city with a pompous black sergeant who obviously knew the town only from the kerbstone to the railing. The Jamaica police have no eyes that see through brick walls. They have a love for intrigue, but lack the capacity of meeting cunning with detective craft. If a thing is to be seen with the naked eye they see it well enough; but, as a rule, they have no imagination and no power of working up theories. Sherlock Holmes would have been a chemist only had he been born a negro.
Every constable seems to imagine that, socially and politically, he is far above the ordinary inhabitant. He feels towards his coloured brethren in about the same way as a cavalry colonel feels towards a newly-joined militia private. Between a member of the constabulary force and an ordinary person there can be no close friendship. The black policeman lives in a atmosphere of the police court, and seems always to regard every member of the public as a possible prisoner and a certain criminal. Really in his heart I think he feels the bitterness of his exalted loneliness. He inwardly regrets the necessity of his aloofness from human pleasures. He would probably prefer to be a soldier. This he will never admit, even to himself. But, I repeat, probably he would prefer to be a soldier of the line. The uniform is better; it is far more picturesque. And the men of the West Indian Regiments combine dignity and popularity in a manner entirely mystifying to the Jamaican police. Besides, the brilliant-soldier companies march down the high road to the music of pipes and drums, and the weary constable has to stand by and see that the road is clear. The soldier is a picturesque hero; the police constable is—a constable of justice and nothing more.
