The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-11-08
FROM TIE GREAT HUGO
Sketches in the immortal
Word-Artist's Memoirs.
.PILLAGE IN SAN DOMINGO
Louis XVI's Execution, Gath
cred From an Eyewitness,

The memoirs Of Victor Hugo have been
published by G. W. Dillingham; & Co, of
New York, and the New York World
publishes extracts from the work, which
is said TO be remarkable. Below are
two 70 these The first is entitled:
1.-THE Pinage,'' and is an incident Of
the revolution in Santo Domingo.
1 thought that ! must be dreaming.
None who did not witness the sight
could form any idea Of it. l will, however,
endeavor to depict something of it.
will simply recount what 1 saw with my
own eyes. This small portion Of great
scene infinitely reproduced will enable you
to form some MOTTO. Sas to the general as
pect of the town during the three days
Of pillage. Multiply these details ad lib
itum and you will get the ensemble.
I had taken refuge by the gate of the
town. puny barrier made OF long laths
painted yellow nailed to cross laths and
sharpened at the top. Near by was a
kind of shed in which some hapeless CO.
lonists, who had been driven from their
homes, had sought shelter. They were
silent and seemed to be petrified in all
the attitudes of dispair. Just outside of
the shed an old man, weeping, was seat
ed on the trunk of mahogany tree
which mas lying on the ground and look
ed like the shaft of a colmun. Another
vainly sought TO restrain a white woman
who, wild with fright, was trying to flee,
without knowing where she was going,
through the crowd Of furious. ragged,
bowling negroes.
The negroes, however, free, victorious,
drunk, mad. paid not the slightest atten-
ton to this miserable, forlorn group of
whites short distance from US two OF
them, with their knives between their
teeth, were slaughtering an OK. upon
which they were kneeling with their feet
in its blood.
A little further on two hideous black
women, dressed as marchionesses, covered
with ribbons and pompons, their breasts
bare, and their heads encountered with
feathers and laces. were quarrelling over
a magnificent dres of Chinese satin
which one of them had grasped with her
nails while the other hung on to It with
her teeth TIA their feet a number OF
little blacks were ransacking a broken
trunk from which the dress had been
taken.
The rest was incredible to see and I'M
possible to dicribe. 1t was a crowd, a
mob masquerade reyel, hell, ter
rible buffoonery Negroes, negresses and
mulattoes, in every posture. in all manner
of DISCUSSES, displayed all sorts of cos
tunes, and, what was worse, their nudity.
Here was a pot-bellied, ugly mulatto, Of
~
in waistcoat and trousers of white ma
terial but with a bishops mitre on his
head and a crosier in his hand. Else
where three or four negroes with three
cornered hats stuck on their heads. and
wearing red or blue military coats with
the shoulder belts crossed upon their
black skin, were harvesting an unfortu-
nate militiaman they had captured, and
who, with his hands tied behind his back,
was being dragged through the town.
With loud bursts of laughter they slap
ped his powdered hair and pulled his
long pigtan.
Now and then they would stop andforce
the prisoner to kneel and by signs given
him to understand that they We're going
to shoot him there. Then prodding him
with the butts of their rifles they would
make him get up again, and go through
the same performance further on.
A number of old muIattresses had form
ed a ring and were skipping round in the
midst Of the mob. They were dressed in
the nattiest costumes of our youngest and
prettiest white women, and in dancing
raised their skirts so as show their lean,
shrivelled legs and yellow thighs Moth
T. -f-al 4h11 oil
these charming fashions and fnery of the
frivolous century of Louis XIV, those
Vatican shepherdess costumes furbelows
plumes and laces, upon these black ugly
faced. flat-nosed. wooly-headed, frightful
people Thus decked out they were no
longer even negroes and negressee; they
were apes and monkeys.
Add to all this a deafening uproar.
Every mouth that was not making a !
contortion was emitting yells
I have not finished; you must accept I
the picture complete TO its minutest de- |
tail.
Twenty PAGES from me was an inn. a /
frightful hovel. whose sign was a wreath l
of dried herbs hung upon picka1e Moth /
ing but a roof. window and three-Ieeged /
tables A low ale-house. rickerty furnish /
ings. Negroes and mulattOes were drink !
ing there intoxicating and besottiHg them 4
selves. and fraternising- One has 10 have 4
seen these things 70 depict them. In front /
OF the tables OF the drunkards a fairly
young negress was displaying herself /
She was dressed ina man waistcoat. IN I
buttoned. and a wamaus skirt loosely at I
tached. On her head was q magistrates 2
wig on one zlrrlr4er -ha o.. rrFsF g, ~
aSol. and on The other rife. With cay
onet fixed.
a few whites. and naked, ran rniser-
ably in the midst Of this panaemonium.