The Roswell daily record. [volume] (Roswell, N.M.) 1903-current, 1903-12-05
HORRORS OFTHE KONG0
Startling Disclosures In a Book
on Central Africa.
TIE AUTHORS CLAIM FULL PRoog

I66 AUTdOhS ULAlW FULL fkUVR
rec State Oficials Accused of Cru.
elites Outdoing Atrocities In Arr
menia-WhOle Villages and Their
Inmates Burned-Natives Reduced
ALI Who Rebel-A GrewsOme scene.
The sensation of the book publishing
in March of 1.-The Curse of Central At
rica,' which is the latest contribution
to the sickening history of the Kongo
Free State, whereof Leopold, king of
eign, says a London cable dispatch to
the Chicago Tribune.
Before the book appeared, it is stated
In the Introduction, the Free State ad,
ministration applied to England for q
legal injunction prohibiting it. The
preliminaries for a libel action also
were taken in behalf of three officials
whose names appeared in certain proof
sheets SEM to the Free State company.
The names subsequently were omitted
from the book. and the book then ap-
peared in March. Almost Immediately
the rumor came from Brussels that
Leopold was protesting to the English
authorities.
Whatever is the truth, the fact IL
that a recent attempt to purchase n
copy resulted in the discovery that the
book has been withdrawn from sale.
This may be only temporary. The au
thors of the book are Captain Guy Bar
rows, who resigned his commission in
the Seventh hussars to take service
with the Free State company, to which
H. M. Stanley had recommended him.
and Edgar C%anisens, who also for sew
eral years was in the company's serv-
ice.
The authors declare that they have
absolute proof of everything in the
book and also much that is not printed,
because it is too horrible for a boo in
tended for general circulation. What
is in the book, however, is sufficiently
horrible and revolving. 1t appears that
the natives have only been delivered
from the Arab slave raiders to become
the slaves of the Free State company,
and stories of cruelties practiced by its
officials are told equaling and surpass-
ing the CHASTITY tales from Armenia
and Bulgaria.
The main trade in the Kongo is rub
Der. Villages are obliged to send in q
certain amount, which is so great that
1t takes up the whole time of the villa
gers. These villagers wear round their
necks a zinc badge of %servitude, with
a name and number. If they bring in
at the fortnightly muster a quantity
the agent deems insufficient, they are
handed over to the soldiers, thrown to
the ground and logged with a hippo
potamus hide whip fifty to a hundred
laShes.
When the natives revolt at this prac-
teal slavery, it means the sending out
of a military force which surrounds
the village and shoots the men and
such women as try to escape. The rest
are taken prisoners and sent to distant
plantations, where they practically are
slaves and they cannot escape, for
death in the jungle awaits them even
IL they could. Their villages are utter
~ destroyed and soon are completely
Overgrown with a tropical growth.
When expeditions go u to reduce
fresh tribes, the soldiers shoot all of
the men, women and children they pos
sibly can and burn villages, which are
abandoned on their approach. One
practice on these occasions was for the
soldiers to cut off the left hands of all
men. women and children killed and
bring them to the commissary, who
counts them to see that the soldiers
have not wasted cartridges"
A photograph reproduced in the book
shows Major Lothaire and other Bel
gian officials looking on the following
grewsome Gene: Two chiefs who, with
400 people, had come in to place them
selves under Lothaire's protection are
suspended on a horizontal pole by cords
from their necks, middles and ankles
In the most painful attitude. After
thus being suspended these two wretch
es were scalped, then their shin bones
were sawed through by a Belgian doc
tors negro servant, then their ears.
noses and lips were cut off for 1.-THE
amusement Of the onlookers." This
torture lasted an hour, after which the
men were thrown into the bush.
Stories Of similar tortures of men,
women and children are scattered
through the book, with accounts of the
general system of the administration
OF this vast district of 500, 900 square
miles. The book gives evidence of the
existence of an appalling state of
things. 1t is a violation of the solemn
pledges given to Europe when the state
was created.
Novel View of the Foolish virgins.
Bishop Potter is amusing his friends
with an account of a recent visit he
paid to a Sunday school class presided
nyer nv a staid young CLERGYMAN The