But the patient insisted he had not been shot. He didn't want to be arrested for larceny! But everybody about the place then knew that this well-to-do man had paid a night visit to his poorer neighbour's yam patch!
What the remedy for this evil is going to be I don't know. Of course everyone must see the cause. The curse of slavery that hung over the land for 250 years destroys every shred of selfrespect. I put it to you, can a slave have any self-respect, a man who is not responsible for his own doings. He took everything he could get, honestly or dishonestly, he was fraudulently held himself, what did it matter to him whose property he took so long as he kept his back from the lash. And a standard of life that has been inculcated for so long is not likely to be altered in three generations, especially when for the greater part of that time these people have been most distressingly poor.
I like the black man of Jamaica. No one can help liking him, and still more do I like the black woman, with her smiling face and her strong desire to please. But even in this strong desire to please I trace the mark of that cruel bondage that held the people for so long. Ask a peasant man or woman a simple question, how far, for instance, is a certain place, and he will not tell you the truth, though he may have walked the distance every day of his life, and if he does not know it in terms of miles, has a very good idea of how long it will take you to reach it, and could tell you if he pleased. But no, he tries to find out how far you wish it to be, and that distance it is. Ask about the weather, and if you show you wish for rain your peasant predicts rain, even as he is sure it is going to be fine if you want fine weather. Still at heart he is a slave, dependent in a measure on the kindliness of those above him for all he wants.
But dishonesty is not inborn in the Jamaican peasant. At the Myrtle Bank Hotel, where the servants are not only well paid but get good tips from the guests, the maids are so rigidly honest that the very pins and hairpins I dropped on the floor were picked up and placed on my dressing-table.
It was a significant fact. They were no longer slaves, they were self-respecting men and women—even as you or I. Their very tongue had altered. They spoke excellent English, spoke in soft and pleasant voices, to which it was a pleasure to listen. Most of the negroes have naturally pleasant tones, educated, they are delightful so long as the speaker does not think about himself and become pompous and bombastic.
They tell me there is no discontent among the well-paid employees of the United Fruit Company, that they do their work cheerfully and well, and I have seen for myself happy, honest, well-spoken house servants. I once stayed in a house, that of the Hon. A. Harrison, custos of Manchester. I was, unluckily, very ill, and was waited upon by a girl named Hilda, who spoke exactly like a highly-educated English lady. She had a charmingly modulated voice, and her words were well chosen, though she was a simple, barefooted girl in a cotton gown with a handkerchief on her head.
“How is it, Hilda, you speak so nicely?” I asked in wonder.
She showed a row of even milk-white teeth in a smile.
“I don't know, ma'am,” she said. “Perhaps it is because I have lived with my mistress for thirteen years and learned to talk as she does.”
This is what may be, but as a rule is not.