Tracks of a Rolling Stone Part 10

On our arrival at Golden Grove, there was a great turn-out of the natives to welcome their young lord and 'ma.s.sa.' Archy was touched and amused by their frantic loyalty. But their mode of exhibiting it was not so entirely to his taste. Not only the young, but the old women wanted to hug him. 'Eigh! Dat you, Ma.s.sa? Dat you, sar? Me no believe him. Out o' de way, you trash! Eigh! me too much pleased like devil.' The one constant and spontaneous e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n was, 'Yah! Ma.s.sa too muchy handsome!

Garamighty! Buckra berry fat!' The latter attribute was the source of genuine admiration; but the object of it hardly appreciated its recognition, and waved off his subjects with a mixture of impatience and alarm.

We had scarcely been a week at Golden Grove, when my two companions and Durham's servant were down with yellow fever. Being 'salted,' perhaps, I escaped scot-free, so helped Archy's valet and Mr. Forbes, his factor, to nurse and to carry out professional orders. As we were thirty miles from Kingston the doctor could only come every other day. The responsibility, therefore, of attending three patients smitten with so deadly a disease was no light matter. The factor seemed to think discretion the better part of valour, and that Jamaica rum was the best specific for keeping his up. All physicians were _Sangrados_ in those days, and when the Kingston doctor decided upon bleeding, the hysterical state of the darky girls (we had no men in the bungalow except Durham's and Archy's servants) rendered them worse than useless. It fell to me, therefore, to hold the basin while Archy's man was attending to his master.

Durham, who had nerves of steel, bore his lot with the grim stoicism which marked his character. But at one time the doctor considered his state so serious that he thought his lordship's family should be informed of it. Accordingly I wrote to the last Lord Grey, his uncle and guardian, stating that there was little hope of his recovery. Poor Phoca was at once tragic and comic. His medicine had to be administered every, two hours. Each time, he begged and prayed in lacrymose tones to be let off. It was doing him no good. He might as well be allowed to die in peace. If we would only spare him the beastliness this once, on his honour he would take it next time 'like a man.' We were inexorable, of course, and treated him exactly as one treats a child.

At last the crisis was over. Wonderful to relate, all three began to recover. During their convalescence, I amused myself by shooting alligators in the mangrove swamps at Holland Bay, which was within half an hour's ride of the bungalow. It was curious sport. The great saurians would lie motionless in the pools amidst the snake-like tangle of mangrove roots. They would float with just their eyes and noses out of water, but so still that, without a gla.s.s, (which I had not,) it was difficult to distinguish their heads from the countless roots and rotten logs around them. If one fired by mistake, the sport was spoiled for an hour to come.

I used to sit watching patiently for one of them to show itself, or for something to disturb the gla.s.sy surface of the dark waters. Overhead the foliage was so dense that the heat was not oppressive. All Nature seemed asleep. The deathlike stillness was rarely broken by the faintest sound,-though unseen life, amidst the heat and moisture, was teeming everywhere; life feeding upon life. For what purpose? To what end? Is this a primary law of Nature? Does cannibalism prevail in Mars?

Sometimes a mocking-bird would pipe its weird notes, deepening silence by the contrast. But besides pestilent mosquitos, the only living things in sight were humming-birds of every hue, some no bigger than a b.u.t.terfly, fluttering over the blossoms of the orchids, or darting from flower to flower like flashes of prismatic rays.

I killed several alligators; but one day, while stalking what seemed to be an unusual monster, narrowly escaped an accident. Under the excitement, my eye was so intently fixed upon the object, that I rather felt than saw my way. Presently over I went, just managed to save my rifle, and, to my amazement, found I had set my foot on a sleeping reptile. Fortunately the brute was as much astonished as I was, and plunged with a splash into the adjacent pool.

A Cambridge friend, Mr. Walter Shirley, owned an estate at Trelawny, on the other side of Jamaica; while the invalids were recovering, I paid him a visit; and was initiated into the mysteries of cane-growing and sugar-making. As the great split between the Northern and Southern States on the question of slavery was pending, the life, condition, and treatment of the negro was of the greatest interest. Mr. Shirley was a gentleman of exceptional ability, and full of valuable information on these subjects. He pa.s.sed me on to other plantations; and I made the complete round of the island before returning to my comrades at Golden Grove. A few weeks afterwards I stayed with a Spanish gentleman, the Marquis d'Iznaga, who owned six large sugar plantations in Cuba; and rode with his son from Casilda to Cienfuegos, from which port I got a steamer to the Havana. The ride afforded abundant opportunities of comparing the slave with the free negro. But, as I have written on the subject elsewhere, I will pa.s.s to matters more entertaining.

CHAPTER XVII

ON my arrival at the Havana I found that Durham, who was still an invalid, had taken up his quarters at Mr. Crauford's, the Consul-General.

Phoca, who was nearly well again, was at the hotel, the only one in the town. And who should I meet there but my old Cambridge ally, Fred, the last Lord Calthorpe. This event was a fruitful one,-it determined the plans of both of us for a year or more to come.

Fred-as I shall henceforth call him-had just returned from a hunting expedition in Texas, with another sportsman whom he had accidentally met there. This gentleman ultimately became of even more importance to me than my old friend. I purposely abstain from giving either his name or his profession, for reasons which will become obvious enough by-and-by; the outward man may be described. He stood well over six feet in his socks; his frame and limbs were those of a gladiator; he could crush a horseshoe in one hand; he had a small head with a bull-neck, purely Grecian features, thick curly hair with crisp beard and silky moustache.

He so closely resembled a marble Hercules that (as he must have a name) we will call him Samson.

Before Fred stumbled upon him, he had spent a winter camping out in the snows of Canada, bear and elk shooting. He was six years or so older than either of us-_i.e._ about eight-and-twenty.

As to Fred Calthorpe, it would be difficult to find a more 'manly' man.

He was unacquainted with fear. Yet his courage, though sometimes reckless, was by no means of the brute kind. He did not run risks unless he thought the gain would compensate them; and no one was more capable of weighing consequences than he. His temper was admirable, his spirits excellent; and for any enterprise where danger and hardship were to be encountered few men could have been better qualified. By the end of a week these two had agreed to accompany me across the Rocky Mountains.

Before leaving the Havana, I witnessed an event which, though disgusting in itself, gives rise to serious reflections. Every thoughtful reader is conversant enough with them; if, therefore, he should find them out of place or trite, apology is needless, as he will pa.s.s them by without the asking.

The circ.u.mstance referred to is a public execution. Mr. Sydney Smith, the vice-consul, informed me that a criminal was to be garrotted on the following morning; and asked me whether I cared to look over the prison and see the man in his cell that afternoon. We went together. The poor wretch bore the stamp of innate brutality. His crime was the most revolting that a human being is capable of-the violation and murder of a mere child. When we were first admitted he was sullen, merely glaring at us; but, hearing the warder describe his crime, he became furiously abusive, and worked himself into such a pa.s.sion that, had he not been chained to the wall, he would certainly have attacked us.

At half-past six next morning I went with Mr. Smith to the Campo del Marte, the princ.i.p.al square. The crowd had already a.s.sembled, and the tops of the houses were thronged with spectators. The women, dressed as if for a bull-fight or a ball, occupied the front seats. By squeezing and pushing we contrived to get within eight or nine yards of the machine, where I had not long been before the procession was seen moving up the Pa.s.seo. A few mounted troops were in front to clear the road; behind them came the Host, with a number of priests and the prisoner on foot, dressed in white; a large guard brought up the rear. The soldiers formed an open square. The executioner, the culprit, and one priest ascended the steps of the platform.

The garrotte is a short stout post, at the top of which is an iron crook, just wide enough to admit the neck of a man seated in a chair beneath it.

Through the post, parallel with the crook, is the loop of a rope, whose ends are fastened to a bar held by the executioner. The loop, being round the throat of the victim, is so powerfully tightened from behind by half a turn of the bar, that an extra twist would sever a man's head from his body.

The murderer showed no signs of fear; he quietly seated himself, but got up again to adjust the chair and make himself comfortable! The executioner then arranged the rope round his neck, tied his legs and his arms, and retired behind the post. At a word or a look from the priest the wrench was turned. For a single instant the limbs of the victim were convulsed, and all was over.

No exclamation, no whisper of horror escaped from the lookers on. Such a scene was too familiar to excite any feeling but morbid curiosity; and, had the execution taken place at the usual spot instead of in the town, few would have given themselves the trouble to attend it.

It is impossible to see or even to think of what is here described without gravely meditating on its suggestions. Is capital punishment justifiable? This is the question I purpose to consider in the following chapter.

CHAPTER XVIII

ALL punishments or penal remedies for crime, except capital punishment, may be considered from two points of view: First, as they regard Society; secondly, as they regard the offender.

Where capital punishment is resorted to, the sole end in view is the protection of Society. The malefactor being put to death, there can be no thought of his amendment. And so far as this particular criminal is concerned, Society is henceforth in safety.

But (looking to the individual), as equal security could be obtained by his imprisonment for life, the extreme measure of putting him to death needs justification. This is found in the a.s.sumption that death being the severest of all punishments now permissible, no other penalty is so efficacious in preventing the crime or crimes for which it is inflicted.

Is the a.s.sumption borne out by facts, or by inference?

For facts we naturally turn to statistics. Switzerland abolished capital punishment in 1874; but cases of premeditated murder having largely increased during the next five years, it was restored by Federal legislation in 1879. Still there is nothing conclusive to be inferred from this fact. We must seek for guidance elsewhere.

Reverting to the above a.s.sumption, we must ask: First, Is the death punishment the severest of all evils, and to what extent does the fear of it act as a preventive? Secondly, Is it true that no other punishment would serve as powerfully in preventing murder by intimidation?

Is punishment by death the most dreaded of all evils? 'This a.s.sertion,'

says Bentham, 'is true with respect to the majority of mankind; it is not true with respect to the greatest criminals.' It is pretty certain that a malefactor steeped in crime, living in extreme want, misery and apprehension, must, if he reflects at all, contemplate a violent end as an imminent possibility. He has no better future before him, and may easily come to look upon death with brutal insensibility and defiance.

The indifference exhibited by the garrotted man getting up to adjust his chair is probably common amongst criminals of his type.

Again, take such a crime as that of the Cuban's: the pa.s.sion which leads to it is the fiercest and most ungovernable which man is subject to.

s.e.xual jealousy also is one of the most frequent causes of murder. So violent is this pa.s.sion that the victim of it is often quite prepared to sacrifice life rather than forego indulgence, or allow another to supplant him; both men and women will gloat over the murder of a rival, and gladly accept death as its penalty, rather than survive the possession of the desired object by another.

Further, in addition to those who yield to fits of pa.s.sion, there is a cla.s.s whose criminal promptings are hereditary: a large number of unfortunates of whom it may almost be said that they were destined to commit crimes. 'It is unhappily a fact,' says Mr. Francis Galton ('Inquiries into Human Faculty'), 'that fairly distinct types of criminals breeding true to their kind have become established.' And he gives extraordinary examples, which fully bear out his affirmation. We may safely say that, in a very large number of cases, the worst crimes are perpetrated by beings for whom the death penalty has no preventive terrors.

But it is otherwise with the majority. Death itself, apart from punitive aspects, is a greater evil to those for whom life has greater attractions. Besides this, the permanent disgrace of capital punishment, the lasting injury to the criminal's family and to all who are dear to him, must be far more cogent incentives to self-control than the mere fear of ceasing to live.

With the criminal and most degraded cla.s.s-with those who are actuated by violent pa.s.sions and hereditary taints, the cla.s.s by which most murders are committed-the death punishment would seem to be useless as an intimidation or an example.

With the majority it is more than probable that it exercises a strong and beneficial influence. As no mere social distinction can eradicate innate instincts, there must be a large proportion of the majority, the better-to-do, who are both occasionally and habitually subject to criminal propensities, and who shall say how many of these are restrained from the worst of crimes by fear of capital punishment and its consequences?

On these grounds, if they be not fallacious, the retention of capital punishment may be justified.

Secondly. Is the a.s.sumption tenable that no other penalty makes so strong an impression or is so pre-eminently exemplary? Bentham thus answers the question: 'It appears to me that the contemplation of perpetual imprisonment, accompanied with hard labour and occasional solitary confinement, would produce a deeper impression on the minds of persons in whom it is more eminently desirable that that impression should be produced than even death itself. . . . All that renders death less formidable to them renders laborious restraint proportionably more irksome.' There is doubtless a certain measure of truth in these remarks. But Bentham is here speaking of the degraded cla.s.s; and is it likely that such would reflect seriously upon what they never see and only know by hearsay? Think how feeble are their powers of imagination and reflection, how little they would be impressed by such additional seventies as 'occasional solitary confinement,' the occurrence and the effects of which would be known to no one outside the jail.

As to the 'majority,' the higher cla.s.ses, the fact that men are often imprisoned for offences-political and others-which they are proud to suffer for, would always attenuate the ignominy attached to 'imprisonment.' And were this the only penalty for all crimes, for first-cla.s.s misdemeanants and for the most atrocious of criminals alike, the distinction would not be very finely drawn by the interested; at the most, the severest treatment as an alternative to capital punishment would always savour of extenuating circ.u.mstances.

There remain two other points of view from which the question has to be considered: one is what may be called the Vindictive, the other, directly opposed to it, the Sentimental argument. The first may be dismissed with a word or two. In civilised countries torture is for ever abrogated; and with it, let us hope, the idea of judicial vengeance.

The _lex talionis_-the Levitic law-'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth,' is befitting only for savages. Unfortunately the Christian religion still promulgates and pa.s.sionately clings to the belief in h.e.l.l as a place or state of everlasting torment-that is to say, of eternal torture inflicted for no ultimate end save that of implacable vengeance. Of all the miserable superst.i.tions ever hatched by the brain of man this, as indicative of its barbarous origin, is the most degrading. As an ordinance ascribed to a Being worshipped as just and beneficent, it is blasphemous.

The Sentimental argument, like all arguments based upon feeling rather than reason, though not without merit, is fraught with mischief which far outweighs it. There are always a number of people in the world who refer to their feelings as the highest human tribunal. When the reasoning faculty is not very strong, the process of ratiocination irksome, and the issue perhaps unacceptable, this course affords a convenient solution to many a complicated problem. It commends itself, moreover, to those who adopt it, by the sense of chivalry which it involves. There is something generous and n.o.ble, albeit quixotic, in siding with the weak, even if they be in the wrong. There is something charitable in the judgment, 'Oh! poor creature, think of his adverse circ.u.mstances, his ignorance, his temptation. Let us be merciful and forgiving.' In practice, however, this often leads astray. Thus in most cases, even where premeditated murder is proved to the hilt, the sympathy of the sentimentalist is invariably with the murderer, to the complete oblivion of the victim's family.

Bentham, speaking of the humanity plea, thus words its argument: 'Attend not to the sophistries of reason, which often deceive, but be governed by your hearts, which will always lead you right. I reject without hesitation the punishment you propose: it violates natural feelings, it harrows up the susceptible mind, it is tyrannical and cruel.' Such is the language of your sentimental orators.

'But abolish any one penal law merely because it is repugnant to the feelings of a humane heart, and, if consistent, you abolish the whole penal code. There is not one of its provisions that does not, in a more or less painful degree, wound the sensibility.'

As this writer elsewhere observes: 'It is only a virtue when justice has done its work, &c. Before this, to forgive injuries is to invite their perpetration-is to be, not the friend, but the enemy of society. What could wickedness desire more than an arrangement by which offences should be always followed by pardon?'

Sentiment is the _ultima ratio feminarum_, and of men whose natures are of the epicene gender. It is a luxury we must forego in the face of the stern duties which evil compels us to encounter.