The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-11-03
l.AFlTTE AS A MODEL MAN.
g-tE HE WAS SOMETHING OF A
s1fyGGLER, But NEVER a
PIRATE.

a Friendly and Maybe an Accurate
View Of the Alleged One-Time
Terror of the GuIf-Had no Occa-
sion 10 bury Treasure.
From the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
San Antonio. Text does not seem Just
the right thing to go about in an icono-
elastic way SCATTERING the historic and
traditional idols of our school days, but
truth is mighty and must prevail. have
been giving some attention TO our time
honored pirates of late, and after much
research have been forced to the conclu-
sion that America has very little reason
10 be proud of her pirates as such.
never did have any faith in the piratical
genuineness Of Capt. Kidd and as for
Jean Lafitte-well, 1 am going to expose
Jean right now as a very poor quality of
pirate. 1t is true Jean has had a great
reputation on the Texas and Louisiana
coast, where most of the people take it
easy and work their imaginations only.
For every bay, inlet swamp bayou and
island of that waterlogged country there
are hundreds of yarns of sea fights, cruel
murders, scuttled ships, captive maidens,
all beautiful, though sad, scuppers run
ming over with blood and buried treas
ures. According to report, enough treas
ure is buried along these shores to ever
lasungly break the gold market, and as
Tor silver there is too much of it to de-
serve notice. There are guardian ghosts
galore and piles of buried lucre, the loca-
ton o. which is known to old negroes,
MeXicans, swamp jewellers and parties
with maps, who, strangely enough, never
profit by their knowledge In every one of
these old tales Jean Lafitte appears, tow
ering pre-emnent over all
As matter of fact these stories have
no more OF truth for their basis than Sir
"a M
city of Manoa 1t might be asked why
this dissemination of untruth is so prev
alent. The northern visitor and the oc-
casionaI correspondent come down here,
and they want to know about LATTE.
The native is Of an accommodating dis
position, and hates to disappOnt the in
quirer, whether he knows anything or
not. II he does not know, as is the case
nearly always, lie cOncocts a tale to
spit the occasion. helping his Imagination
with q thousand fragments of remarNa-
bic stories he himself has heard from
others.
have heard a tale about Latte get
ammunition. The Understanding pirate
Immediately hauis out his treasures of
g0ld and silver and molds them into can
non balls, etc. fires away, and gains a
hard-fought victory.
I read lately that Gov. Hogg had ac-
CITRATE and unQuestioned information as
- vast amount Of treasure buried by
38fitte Down in Mexico. All he had to
e. was to 90, dig IT up, and celebrate
There is a man even now down in Louis
lane seeking information concerning La
ME. / last heard of him from the
sNa-aus around Lake Charles. lie
3r-te1. and a newspaper calmly pub
i.shes 81. that he Is there trying to find
Were and how LATTE died. OF all the
lla -os IN the world. BE misht as well go
70 Sachaiieu 10 get Information regard
3as the removal of the late Sitting Bull
p llst as far from the place of La
n'le Gecease as his present location is
distant from Yucata1
Now, the United states had various
oeafnEs with LATTE. and the accounts
ot these dealings were properly filed
a"ay among the records at Washington
mostly i'm the form Of business-like re-
ports OF naval officers. The contempor-
airy HISTORIANS of his times i'm Louisiana
"rote Of him, ana they probably know
what they were writing about The Cen.
lIai American republics, also Venezuela
&nt Mexico, hafi various connections
With this reputea pirate. and preserved
tIe records a. the same. These THINGS
tafoW so much light GA Lahttes record
.t.al II is easy to form an accurate es-
INMATE as to what manner Of man he was