The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-04-13
THE TRIP TO sANTO DOMINGO.
Some UnofHcial Ideas About II and Annex.
alton.


Some UnofI1cial Ideas About IL and Annex
alton.
George Alfred Townsend writes in his usual
free-aDd-easy way to the Chicago Tribune about
the trip to Santo Domingo as follows:-
Franz Sigel has returned with the San Domin-
go party, and. If rumor be correct, looks upon
the.whole performance down there as ridiculous.
He has no opinion of Baez, no belief in the
island as O component of the American republic,
and no respect for anything about 1t. 1t Is he
who was said to have given Schurz the name
of the "Pickwick Club" as applied to the
San Domingo Commission. General Boynton,
with whom l have talked about the trip,
gave the following notioDs:-He says that San
Domingo is a land of dehght-to the eye par
ticularly of Northern man who has never
been anywhere near the tropics on account of
the luXuriant growth of vegetation. He says
that the trip was like walking through scores of
miles of the Capitoline conservatory, through
flowers, vegetation. rich colors, and all the pro-
ductions of heat and moisture. Wherever q
rock could be made to crumble, vegetation
started forth, and those luscious features we're
at first bewildering to the eyes of the explorers.
But, he says, there is no mortal reason why we
should want the island. A good deal of it has
gone to waste, and the rest Is scarcely cultivated
at all. After spending some weeks among its
coasts the view of Kingston, in Jamaica-a
town about the size of Alexandria, Va.-seemed
like a social Paradise. He says that Baez
looks like a French dancing master, and i'm
presses one as conniving politician, aud pretty
He says that the Pickwick Club was funeral
compared to this commission, so far as ridicu-
lousness was concerned for the three Commis-
sioners had no harmony at ALL Ben. Wade being
the only man who showed himself to be an
open-air, hearty old fellow. DR.. Howe and
Professor White looked upon their Office as
great secret State matter, and held frequent
private conferences in retired Places from
which old Wade would come out aud blurt the
whole thing to the reporters, damning his con-
tadaratpg q of
giners who thought themselves important.
Boynton says that there are no snakes on the
island. that he saw some centipedes and great
many scorpions that the people are all of
come day GO day sort, idle and lettering, but
that as nobody in the commission on either side
spoke Spanish, they had hardly any converse
ton with the people who could inform them.
Those who did speak it according to the books
could not make their learning Ineligible to the
natives This shows how General Grant selected
his San Domingo Commission, pretty much as
he does the most of his Notwithstanding them
to find out something, without regard to their
requirements in the Spanish language, but that
their statements might have some effect upon
the country. Boynton says that when they
came to Hayti they did see strong, sensitive
cannibal-looking race, with negro skins, but
with straight noses, and all the appearance of
men who made nation, and were going to fight
for 1t; who did not mean to be wheedled out of
it, and who could get up revolution in earnest,
at short notice.
All the correspondents were delighted to come
home, and all who had a chance to go, and did
not do it, are delighted that they stayed at
home. Nearly all Of them described the affair,
from beginning to end, to have been perfect
farce. Three men and lot of newspaper folks
were sent out junketing to country, about
which they had no knowledge, with whole
fleet of ships of-war to accompany them, and
they came back knowing nothing about it, and
their only trophies are a lot of bugs picked up
by the naturaliSts. Was there ever such farce,
even under this administration?