The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1902-07-02


government in the roadstead of a city
reported to be harboring thousands OF
destitute, terrified refugees is usually
provocative of great interest, if not OF
excitement, but the United States
cruiser Dixie, bearing 1880 tons oil
stores for the stricken of Martinique,
came to anchor in the harbor of Fort
de France the other morning, and an
excursion steamer would, no doubt,
have aroused as much apparent com
motion ashore as she, writes the New
York Evening Posts special cores
Dondent under date of May 81.
This is not to charge the people of
Fort de France with ingratitude nor to
say an unkind thing of one of the
quaintest, LATEST spots in the West
Indies. 1t is simply commentary up
on the languor into which those living
south of latitude IA north lapse two
minutes after an event occurs and, in
vcidentally, upon certain errors of COM
putation as to the number of refugees
''crowding into Fort de France"
When the health officer, very small
man in very large white helmet,
came aboard the Dixie, we learned
that there had been an eruption OF
Mont Pelee in the morning Of the day
before, that ashes and stones had fall
zen in Fort de France and that the peo-
pie. including the refugees, had been
in panic.
These were the people we had come
do help. to feed and cIothe and shelter;
these were the people for whom imme-
a7iate assistance was necessary, TO
whom emperors and kings were send
ing money. 1t was great satisfaction
TO us-though we, as newspaper CORE
sDondents, were not absolutely neceS-
ssary to the success of the expedition
that our ship had come upon the scene
with holds filled with food, clothing,
medical stores and tents and could be
of prompt and practical aid to the suf-
ferers.
TIE first blow came when one of the
newspaper men asked some one IN the
doctors party what stores were needed
ashore for those who had fed south
ward from the region about Pelee. The
stores sufficient to maintain them for
six months The second blow was de-
Iivered by Waterman, a black, who
came off shore in his narrow ram
Drow dugout with fresh milk ana bread
for sale.
The Dixie had cast anchor at 6
o'clock or thereabout. while the church
bells ashore were ringing the Angelus-
one imagined it sort of benediction
upon our coming-and many of us had
pictured the pellmell eagerness with
which the natives would welcome the
expedition and it's tons of foOdstuffs
But Fort de France is too old, too IAN
guild, az we soon learned, to rouse itself
out of its somnolent groove.
The shore line was dotted with peo-
pie 1--WE could almost see their hungry.
4eayer faces and the cable had just
ended it's noisy journey through the
hawse pipe when the shore boats
swarmed alongside. Instead OF eager
appeals for food, the one cry of these
boat1nen was, 60 ashore now, sir" in
uncertain English, to the accompani-
1nent of brown hand waved toward
the city.
After the health officer had gone
oversize we did go ashore, and any
illusions we may have had as to re-
jojeing over the coming of the Dixie
provisions were dispelled by the horde
of beggars which made every moment
OF our day in Fort de France running
1igAt Any attempt to make the horde
understand that the American warshlp
in the harbOr had come with food ana
clothing for aIl--free, not to be paid
for, a Gift-was amazingly unsuccess-
Gni in awakening the looked for reJolc-
5Irx. 1t may have been the bad French
Sa which the news was conveyed
egkatever it was it did not lessen one
gOtS ehe natives desire to carry one S
aamera, to show one the way to the ho-
lei. the cafe, the cable office, the place
where panama hats were to be bought
In fact, to do anything in the expecta-
zion OF the rewarding sou.
We recalled what we had been told
of the panic of the morning before, OF
the rain of ashes and stones-piles or
sS1SnSS ia tnG alISCtS WOlV POAhbS0 49,
80 US in substantial tion-and of the
headlOng flight of many into the sea
10 swim to safety, and it must be
said that for people who had suffered
and done these things only twenty-four
hours before the natives of Fort de
France were the happiest, LATEST, most
seposefu! lot this correspondent has
ever seen.
One of the first and most natural In
qquiries mace by the correspondents
was as to the whereabouts of the ref
ugees, the thousands 'crowding into
fort de France" This person an
swered that some of them were in the
city, many just on the outskirts; thai
person said they were coming in every
Gay, that there were hundreds of then
~.over there"-a wide sweep of the
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