counted entirely humorous were it not for the constant bloodshed.
Morally the Haytians are impossible people. Snake worship and cannibalism, and all the old superstitions of barbaric Africa, still prevail in the gilded republic. Their religion is frequently but a thin veneer of polish, worn to cover the arts of fetish worship and human sacrifice. The lives of the citizens are not respected so much by the prevailing government as are the political rights of the electorate. The whole republic is one festering mass of corruption. The officials are as a rule entirely corrupt, the European church has practically no real existence, sober “home life” is almost unknown. The men of the place are as a rule entirely vicious, unlicensed and unprincipled; the women are unmoral and entirely without culture.
It is a curious place to look upon, this Hayti; but it is a most unsafe place to travel in. The people of the capital, Port-au-Prince, live in the midst of a city of fine buildings and garbage-littered streets; the women parade the white squares in European costumes of Parisian silks and high-heeled, patent-leather shoes. The men swagger in gaudy, tinselled uniforms of extravagant design and indifferent workmanship, trailing tailor-made swords, and jingling heavy South American spurs. Their manners are entirely without polish, though they swagger with the air of a crack German cavalry colonel mixed with the braggadocio of a half-bred Spanish Mexican. The children of the reigning officials and the sons of the richest merchants are sent to Paris to be educated. These young people return to Hayti with a deep knowledge of all the vices of the gay capital, and many trunks filled with gaudy finery which, probably, have been obtained on credit. The condition of the people of the black republic is similar to that of any Gold Coast tribe of negroes with a rich country and a knowledge of the vices of Europe,—similar, except that whereas the Haytians are all powerful and independent, the Gold Coast tribe is watched by a strong white government and kept within the bounds of decency.
It will be gathered that Hayti is not a pretty place. I would not have troubled to mention it at all had it not been that the black republic has a profound significance to all British people who take their Empire seriously. Hayti is the world’s object lesson of what a country must become so soon as the negro obtains fairly within his grasp the reins of government. In discussing the West Indian problems it would be well if Britain always kept in mind the condition of this one black republic in the west. Why? Because it is estimated that Jamaica has a population of seven hundred and fifty thousand people, ninety-five per cent of whom are coloured. Education is spreading rapidly among the people of our largest West Indian colony, and in the market-places and among the huts of the native villages one constantly hears the phrase “political freedom” and “Government of Jamaica by Jamaicans.” In a government elected entirely by the people of the island, Jamaica will be ruled by black men—just as Hayti is. And the real nature of a negro can never be discovered until he is placed in a position of unfettered power. Hayti is a very few hours sailing distance from Jamaica, and Kingston is the resting-place and recruiting-ground for all the deposed or temporarily overshadowed Haytian presidents. President Salomon, one of the most powerful rulers Hayti ever had, was at one period a refugee of Jamaica, and there he became the intimate friend of Gordon. The Gordon riot was crushed by the Jamaican Government (though the strong man who dealt summarily with the rioters was disgraced in consequence), and Salomon returned to rule in Port-au-Prince. But in Jamaica to-day there is evidence that intrigue and disaffection have not been entirely banished from the hearts of all her coloured citizens.
