The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1877-03-31
sUGAB MAKING IN PERU.
Terrible Treatsnent.of Chinese LaboTers on
fhe Ga.err. pEnn&r&iona

~
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Terrible Tse0ssaent.Of Chinese LabOTers on
the Sugar Plantations.
The manner in which men come by
their deaths is as varied as the ways by
which they earn a living. 1t is not our
intention to write ON the subject of pic
turesque homicide in general, bit to
confine ourselves to one particular class
Of persons, the death they die, and how
they are killed, and nwhose interest,
or for what purpose the final catastrophe
is brought about. Although the MUIR
dered people w refer to are none other
than certain Cinnamon, temporarily
resident IN Pwu, yet, remote as the
place of their slaughter may be, it will
be found that their deaths concern us
more intimately than at first sight they
would appear to do. These hapless
Cinnamon are killed in the process of
making cheap sugar; the sugar so made
is sent to the English market, and OF
course is brought into competition with
the product of our own West India
colonies.
We have, then, to declare that very
much of the sugar which comes to this
country froma Peru is the fruit of the
labor of kidnapped men-of men who
are kept in loathsome isolation from all
the synpathies which make human life
differ from that of the brute-of men
who for years at a time, never see the
face Of woman-who die of despair-are
killed by internal ~cruelties, and left to
rot like c%arrion, and to become food for
carbon birds. This sugar we English
christians eat, this sugar vi allow to
complete with that of our own planters,
and we think hat no mere anxiety to be
| consistent in our belief of a political
doctrine Sshould stand in the way of
putting a stop to that state of things.
Our own government has supplied US
with the knowledge on which we ground
these remarks. The foreign Office has
instituted an inquiry into the condition
of the Chinese in Peru, and has recently
published the result. 1t is British
consul who reports. He says that dur
ing the five years ending 1874 more than
| 5000 Chinese left China for Callao, of
which number more than 5000 died on
the way. Ninety, three ships were en-
gagged in their trade, twenty-four of
which were Peruvian. The rest sailed
under the flags of the French, the Dutch
and Portuguese.
Fourteen million five hundred thou
sand dollars invested in this traffic by
| the producers of Peruvian sugar alone,
and it may add to the interest Of this
statement if we remind our readers that
the greater portion of that great sum
spent in Cinnamon was supplied by the
English public. The Peruvian govern
ment recriEed it in the first instance as
a loan, and then the great officials and
their friends helped themselves to it in
their own peculiar fashion, and set up
in the sugar trade. The immortality of
trusting this class of beings may POSSIBLY
press itself on the mind of the English
public, to say nothing of its expediency.
The madness of lending money to these
foreign thieves, who nearly always steal
it, when the same lent to our col
onies would be safe and yielda tenfold
return, is, we think, beginning to be
perceived by our money-lending people.
It appears that enslaVed, Cinnamon are
also employed in digging guano, blast
ing it and shoveling it into ships. At
the pabelion de Plea alone more than
three hundred Chinese are employed in
this dangerous and disgusting toll. No
less than ninety-eight were in hospital at
the time of the consul's visit, all suffer.
ing from a disease which resembles scurvy
or purpura, to which were added wounds
or bruises received from the falling on
their bodies of great stones and masses Of
displaced guano, which at that deposit
is as hard as granite, and smells like nc
known single stink, but like all the
stinks of the corrupted earth put to
gether.-Londoa Examiner.