AN OPERA-COMIQUE ARMY

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7506, 13 September 1902, Page 3

AN OPERA-COMIQUE ARMY

What Hayttaa Soldiers Look Like to the Eye of the European. (London Eapreat.) \ According to a telegram published^ recently Hayti is at wax— apparently with it-self-r*nd the Haytian Army Ib on the rampage. ■ . *. Hayti is chiefly remarkable, by reason of its' being a military republic, with an army of 4000 generals and 4000 privates— a genei ral to eaoh Tommj. The generals are extraordinary men in more than one sense of the word. There is one who commands ! a large province in the republic, who is | of the lowest of the people, who can neither I read nor. write, and who is neverthdess a I great' revolutionary power. ? This manGeneral Johannis Merisier— is obliged to ask one man to read to him what another man has written for him t and yet in his hands are the lives and deaths of the people over whom he ruhjs. -Every third man you meet' in Hayti is a general, but it is only every tenth general who gets paid; it has to be conceded that each general does. his best to pay himself. The authorised rate of pay is £140 annually for a general of division^ and £105 for a brigadier.' A captain is passing rich on £12 a year; a private thinks himself fortunate if he receives £2 10s during the same period. 9 " Blano," onoe said a private^ in the j hearing of a well-known English jourj nalist, "Blanc, lam a soldier ; give me ten centimes." . "You have your pay." "My general has taken my pay. lam a poor man and a, soldier. Give me ten centimes.' 1 / "Ho-nji long have yon been a soldier?" "Three years." " When did you have your pay last?" "Very long ago, and lam hungry. Give me ten centimes. Merci." SHBED3 AND PATCHES. ! The Haytian soldier's uniform is a fearful and wonderful thing. Let us review a regiment on parade. Some of tbem axe shod in dried grass slippers. They wear a little blue cap with a red band. One man, perhaps, is wearing a shabby pair of old tweed trousers, and slung by a hemp rope over his shoulder is an old-fashioned flintlock gun. The office, who commands the regiment is brandishing a rusty sword. A general has but little sense of justice. An unfortunate Swiss went out shooting once in Hayti without a passport. "Who are you?" said the general when the poor man was brought before him. "1 am a foreigner." " What nationality?" "Swiss." The general turned to his secretary. "Have the Swiss a navy?" "No, ; my general." "Then put' the brute in prison." The army, it goes without saying, is miserably housed. In Port-au-Prince, the capital of Hayti, you will find a post of soldiers every fifty or a hundred yards. They live in wretched guard rooms, which are merely long hovels, with piazzas raised ' two feet above the street. Below flows an open drain., The men themselves drink, smoke, and gamble all the weary day. But they have a good idea of them- ! selves. Two Haytian generals, discussing a review in which, they had just taken part, thus expressed themselves: — . " But the review to-day j what a great spectacle!" , "Without question "the most magnificent spectacle that one. could naive seen." "Yes, indeed, our army is composed of brave men. The troops are the finest in the world. Do you not think so?" turning to a travelling Englishman. He (diplomatically choosing his words) —"I have seen one like it. The army of Hayti is one that depends upon its officers ; an army without officers, what is it?" THE EVER-VIOTOBIOUS ABXT. "The army of Hayti has never been conquered. The French were here; we drove them out. The English fought with us; where are they? But we — we— we—*re here always; we have never been conquered I" X You must never allow si smile to cross your face — however tempted you may be to laugh— if you meet a Haytian soldier. A European diplomatist landed onoe at Port-au-Prince, and on his way from the ship he fell in with what he imagined to be a tattered mountebank carrying a rifle. He smiled, for the black man's pompous solemnity was immensely funny. At ones the negro's face changed. " Yoa laugh at me 1 You laugh at me !" he oxied furiously. He was a soldier of the Republic; his fingers flew to his cartridges; and the visitor waited for no more, but fled up the streei The Haytian soldier needs but the license of m political strife to lash him into frenzy. No wonderHbat the American Consul-General at' Port-au-Prince telegraphed recently to his Government to send a man-of-war without delay. Given politioal troubles and a modicum of shooting in the streets, a man such as we have just described, with intense irascibility of temper, and thousands of companions like himself, would become a very perilous and terrible element in the general anarohy. The Haytian army in peace time may be like that upon a comic opera stage, but given a war it would become a hotbed of tragedy.