The Republican journal., 1902-06-26

Send al one-cent stamps for the paper
covered book, or 81 stamps for the
cloth bound. Address DR.. r. V. Pierce, >.
| Buffalo, n. Y.
| opened her markets to their produce.
| promoted their industries by bounties.
and continued through hard times and
| prosperous days to take nearly all their
exports, In return, while spain has
lost all her colonies on this side of the
world. who ever heard OF a French
island wanting to get away from the
beneticent rule of its mother-countrv?
Gaudeloupe alone sends to France every
year products to the average value of
twenty-five million francs, while her
imports from France average ten mil
hon francs per annum.
Landing at Pointe-a-P itre. the travel
er is at first struck by the lack OF trees
in the streets and parks. so different
from other West India towns. and the
brand-new appearance Of everything,
as if the town We're built only yester-
day, instead of two hundred and odd
years ago; and then he remembers that
it has been virtually destroyed three
times within the memory of citizens
now living Formerly its buildings
were OF stone large and massive. but
all We're shaken down IN the awful
earthquake OF 1875, Then the houses
We're reconstructed OF wood. and few
/ years later a hurricane swept over one
summer afternoon, reducing them all
TO spIinters. Again the city was rebuilt,
mostly of wood. and a lire broke out
/ and lett hardly standing wall. When
the indomitabe Frencumen built up
their city fourth time. they carefully
/ studied the question OF how to be safest
from hurricanes, earthquakes and fires.
and finally decided upon the present
| system OF CONSTITUTIONAL strong IRON
framework filled in with brick and
composite. In those successive disaS-
not worse than the plague OF cholera,
against which no precaution can guard,
and which reapS its annual harvest. \
few years ago upwards OF fifteen thou
sand people died of cholera in Claude
loupe in single season. The cholera
cemetery is visible from the harbor-on
a low sand bluff a mile from the city.
marked by wooden crosses and quaint
French tombs. Just below il is slight
depression in the hillside which, | am
told. was once deep .hollow. The
bodies of hundreds who died of the
plague we're cast into it. and then the
great trench was filled up with easily
dug sand from the beach. SO rapidly
were people stricken down that not
enough of the living were left to bury
them. AS at Galveston III the recent
horror they gave up trying to inter the
dead in mother-ea and vessels were
employed to take the corpses out and
dump them in the harbor Night after
night, under cover of darkness, a line
of ships departed with their gruesome
freight, and there was scant ceremony
IN the taking away of cadavers from
the place where they had enjoyed life
to be given over to the waves 1t is
said that for months afterwards the
sands were strewn with human bones.
picked clean by denlZenS of the deep,
and for years sea-fsh were banished
from the tables of the islanders.
Pointe-a-Pitre might easily be mis-
taken for village III France, were it
not for the black faces seen everywhere
Its population is about 1000, of whom
fully nine tenths are more or less ''col-
ored." The broad, straight streets are
well paved and cross one another at
right angles, bordered by houses three
or four stories high None of the houses
have courts and few have gardens. but
the market space and the great square
III which the theatre is situated are sur
rounded by trees, the greatest of luXu-
rleS III this treeleSs iSland-horSe-ch
nuts brought from France and the giant
sand-boX tree, (hura crepitans) whose
dense foliage of a lovely, soft green,
affords refreshing shade. There is big
/ louh oaii III Ilo ColltIdl SQUARE. several
old fashioned churches and converts,
and fine cathedral-or rather, we
should say, distinguishing back to
the days of Pere Lakat AS in all
French seaports, hospitals are especial
ly numerous, and excellently managed
by the Catholic sisterhood; and the
good Lord knows there are few places
on earth where hospitals are more need
ed. The scavengers of the place are
the same today as when Juan Ponce de
Leon, the noblest and gentlest of all
those old conquistadores, came to eau
deloupe, fresh from his discovery of
Florida, in search of the tabled foun-
tain. They are the great, black, ugly