Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1876-06-16
Forced Labor in Egypt.

IT is astonishing that the majority of
Englishmen should imagine that stop
has been put to this infamous system,
when the very reverse is the case. The
Egyptian Fellaheen and the poor gener-
ally are liable to forced labor-first, at
the public woI ks-a term of very elastic
meaning in country where all things
exist for the ruling despot-such as rail-
ways, the repair of dykes, the making of
canals, the construction of bridges; and
secondly, on the estates and at the sugar
manufactures of the Khedive. For the
first Of these the people receive no pay
ment and keep themselves; for the second
they keep themselves for fifty days and
afterward occasionally receive few dry,
gritty rusks day and a small nominal
payment, which, however, in many in
stances, and especially in remote places,
is either altogether withheld or paid only
in part have the word of the European
Superintendent of one of the largest of the
Khedive's sugar works, that no payment
has been made during his term of office,
period of several years, to any of the
people employed. What takes place is
this Some hundreds of hands are wanted
at one of the Khedive's estates or works.
An order is issued. A steamer with
soldiers on board is sent up the Nile,
towing several huge barges of iron or
wood. 1t anchors opposite town or viii
lage, and soon hundreds of men, boys and
girls, many of tender age, are seen hurry
ing and being driven down to the river
bank, clutching such small bags of bread
or fragments of rusk as they can collect
in haste, and accompanied by their pa
rents, friends, wives and children, who
rend the air with their shrill screams and
lamentations, for they well know that
many dear face will never be seen again
Neither the only sons Of widows nor of
blind and aged parents, nor the fathers of
helpless infants are spared. The despot
requires them-the bastinado and the
prison are the cost of refusal. The whole
crowd are rapidly swept into the barges,
where, without regard to age or sex, they
are packed together like herrings in
barrel. The steamer and the barges then
start with their living freight, many OF
whom will never return to their homes
from the distant sugar or cotton estate to
which they are conveyed. During the
process of their being driven on board,
and during the voyage, no more
account is taken of the occupants
of the barges than of brute beasts.
Arrived at the scene of their la
bors, an incessant mill-horse grind
of toll ensues. There is no Friday
rest, no moments space allowed for re-
creation. Both sexes labor under the eye
of taskmasters armed with sticks, whips,
konobashes, which are freely and need
lessly applied to the often naked, and, at
all events, only one-shirted back of those
poor ''free" laborers, whom the charity of
England has not yet learned TO pity, and
whose brutal taskmaster-in- chief she has
not yet learned TO condemn. / have my
self seen little, tender, emaciated girls
staggering under heavy loads of earth,
who have been lashed each time they as
cended the high bank at which they were
at work, and even prodded in the naked
breasts with sharp palm sticks. l have
seen them sinking upon the earth, faint
ing under their loads. No sort of shelter
| is provided for these unfortunates, though
the nights of an Egyptian winter can be
very cold, and single shirt is their only
garment, Many have not even this. On
the filthy floor of the sugar factory, or on
the bare, stubby ground of the cane-field,
where they cease working, there they lie
down to take their scanty rest and are sue
ceeded on the instant by other gangs
awakened to relieve them.
Thus night and day, without intermis.
sion, the work goes on, and the Cringing
parasites of the little Egyptian court and
the base crew of servile European specula-
tors who prey upon the Khedive, and the
Consuls- General who love tospeak smooth
things, and Cooks tourists, and the re.
porters of the English "dailies," lift up
their hands in fulsome admiration, and
proclaim to the world that so many more
pounds Of sugar have been produced in
Egypt in this than in the preoiOu,
years. These people forget to proclaim
also how much bloOd-and that human
blood-has been expended in its refine
ment and elaboration! An English friend
visiting one of the Khedive's sugar taeto
ries few days ago, observed man a
work loaded with immense chains. On
ilquiring the reason, he was Informed
that the poor wretch had been detected
sucking few inches of sugar.cane, and
he was accordingly condemned to work in
chains for five days and nights without
sleep, and without being allowed to stoE
TO cat FOrtnight[U Repieip.