Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1915-08-31

Domingo.
San Domingo was a Spanish colony.
The inhabitants are mostly negroes
and speak Spanish. Here foreigners
are tolerated, If not liked. The United
| States runs the custom house, pays
the interest on government bonds and
turns the balance over to the govern
ment.
Hayti was a French colony. The
French language Is used. The coun-
try has a color problem, but not of
white and black. There is rivalry be-
tween the mulattoes and blacks. At
one stage Of Hayti's history the mu-
lattoes set up a government in the
south and the blacks another in the
north.
God has been good in Hayti. CO.
lumbus found here a smiling island
inhabited by 100000 Indians Of the
gentlest disposition.
Fruit and flowers abound, making
life easy. The trade winds drop their
rain pl%entifully. The climate for the
most part is even, the temperature in
the hot months being more bearable
than in New York.
But the indolent negroes have suf-
fered the fine buildings of the French
| cities to fall into ruins and live in
most miserable shacks. The streets
and the sewers are identical. They de-
pend on the rains to wash away the
filth and as a result all centres Of pop
ulation are pest holes where whites
soon take sick and die.
Hayti is about one-third the size OF
New York state. Vessels for the Pan
ANA canal from New York will mostly
skirt its coast, giving it the chance for
great Developments future which 1t
will surely miss unless some outside
hand holds down the wild fighting
blacks.
Hayti Is nominally republican, but
in reality it has been ruled by a sue
cession Of tyrants. However, the peo-
pie seem pleased with this form of
government. The s~o-called president
keeps the laws or breaks them, &C
cording to his whim. The difficulties
of carrying out a government in the
American manner appear almost in
superable when 1t Is considered that
many of the high officials can neither
read nor write. Their main idea is to
fill their pockets and eventually head
a successful and bloody revolution.
But the machinery Of constitutional
government is complete; there are
ministers, a senate and a chamber Of
deputies.
These bodies simply carry out the
wishes of the president. If they balk,
the head Of the state promptly sup
presses all symptoms of disobedience,
or tries to. If he doesn't succeed, 1t
is called a revolution and Hayti has
a new president.
Supreme power incorporated in a
strong man appeals to the imagination
of the ignorant, superstitious Hay
items. The man who knows how to
make his will felt becomes their hero
even if he is unspeakably vile, cor
rupt and cruel. .
But these negroes, who bear with
incredible wrongs and tyrannies from
their illiterate masters, resent the
mildest sway by those not Of their W
race and color. The lowest Of the
people are as frantically opposed to
annexation by a white power as are
the upper classes.
The feeling is due to the belief that
the white men seek to enslave them.
They still remember their frightful
state under the French planters and
their glorious war for freedom with
Toussant L'Ouverture, a black Of ge-
MUS, as their leader.
There are courts in Hayti, but their
justice is uncertain. Murderers are
imprisoned a few days and then let
go, while for some slight offense, or
none, a mar who has incurred the en-
nifty Of those in power must languish
in Jail for years.
The nature Of the Haytien mass is
no better mirrored than in the hide
Gus religion of voodooism, which Is
believed to have been brought from
Africa. Few white men have seen
these dreadful rites and escaped.
In the middle of the forest, the
blacks gather at night around a naked
priestess, who holds in her hand the
sacrifice. This is sometimes a rooster
and sometimes the goat without
horns," or a live human child.
The priestess p!unges her ceremo-
NAL knife into the body of the sacri-
flee and then the worshippers seize 1t
and tear it to shreds in their hands.
An orgy of the most obsence sort en-
sues. Cannabalism is n Of the
counts against the voodoo worship
pers, according to a number Of relia-
BILE witnesses.