The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-03-25
West 1ndia's Daughters
Pen Pictures of the Women of Martinique and GuadelOupe
Strange Social Conditions Marriage Almost Unknown

terials used, endless work is expended
on the shocking, tucking and shifring
of the tiny yokes- IF one thing more
than another adds to the '.dress-up' Of
a Martinique belle, it is her emDroid
cred and ruffied white petticoat, which
often represents more than she makes
n a month or two. The washerwOman,
ne women porters and market women
uck up the extra length of their
lresseS under a string or handkerchief,
which is made TO do duty as a girdle
ME women of leisure allow them TO
rail or gracefully carry them over
their arms when the weather is I'M
0ropitiOus. The dress is admirably set
IF by brilliantly cOlored slippers Of
polished leather or suede, heavy with
Embroidery in gold thread; or else a
air OF hig'h-heeled, coloreo boots, the
edges of which are embroidered in silk
# contrasting color. while the but
Ons are Of still another color.
The love of dress and its indulgence
by the French West Indian women in
yolye no excessive expenditures OF
money by the male members Of the ma
tive household, for women provide their
own clothes; indeed, thousands OF men,
white as well as black. are supported
by the women who live under their
. protection" In the hotel, lazy creOleI
are sitting around the tables drinking;
at the landing men are asleep or loung-
ing on benches under the trees, while
the women are loading a steamer with
coal. At Fort de France 1 saw women
carrying seventy or eighty pounds each
IN great baskets on their heads up the
steep gangplank. They walked with
elastic step, neither looking to the right
nor the left. At the top. like an sutos
matte machine, the woman coal porter
gives the basket a tip and the coal dis
appears into the hold. The next mo-
ment she has joined the line descending
20 renIl. I've seen a transatlantic
liner at st. Thomas coaled by twenty
five or thirty women, aged from 1e to 50.
in three hours.
French West Indian Washerwoman.
You walk along the street and OBJ
serve that all the little shops and
stands are presided over by women.
while men lean up against the StrucI
lures smoking and arguing; take To the
hlSh road along the beautiful Suvanee
du Fort, by the Rivere des Blanchi-
seuse and you encounter the market
women; descend by the stone stems to
the rocky edge of the gurgling, bubbling
stream and you find hundreds of wo-
men and girls pounding and rubbing
away on the soiled linen of the comnu-
nity's idle half.
WasherwCmen in MartiniouA are
made, not born. The strength. health
and constitution required for their
calling is not necessary in any other. A
hablt of standing for days in the cold
river is cultivated from childhood. 1t
IS only oy being brought UP in the
water at the feet of her mother and
grandmother that the girl intended for
a Dlanchieseuse or Washerwoman can
endure the ever changing temperature
the broiling sun at one moment and a
drenching rain the next. And even
then they do not escape the ravages of
consumption. At 20 or % all have p
chronic cough and none of them live to
the great age attained by the women
porters and tradeswomen. But "
Keep right on with their singir
Laughing. Only when one is
among them do they stop. TIL p
voices are)not so loud or so @. "a
the hooking and teasing give to
SAD comments and tender euloc, AZ
night though returning later than
usual, for they work more SLOWLY when
they do not sing, they stop, cross them
selves and say little prayer for the
departed one at some of the litfIa
chapels which are to be found in AL
most countless numbers.