content merely with the safeguarding of the future. Surely there should be
some punishment for those who by their injustice and violence have dragged
Christianity and civilization in the dirt. Surely, also, there should be
compulsory compensation out of the swollen moneybags of the three hundred
per cent. concessionnaires for the widows and the orphans, the maimed and
the incapacitated. Justice cannot be satisfied with less. An International
Commission, with punitive powers, may be exceptional, but the whole
circumstances are exceptional, and Europe must rise to them. The fear is,
however, that it is the wretched agents on the spot, the poor driven
bonus-hunters who will be offered up as victims, whereas the real
criminals will escape. The curse of blood and the scorn of every honest
man rest upon them already. Would that they were within the reach of human
justice also! They have been guilty of the sack of a country, the
spoliation of a nation, the greatest crime in all history, the greater for
having been carried out under an odious pretence of philanthropy. Surely
somehow, somewhere, they will have their reward!
APPENDIX
NOTE I--THE CHICOTTE
Chicotting is alluded to in Congo annals as a minor punishment, freely
inflicted upon women and children. It is really a terrible torture, which
leaves the victim flayed and fainting. There is a science in the
administration of it. Felicien Challaye tells of a Belgian officer who
became communicative upon the subject. "One can hardly believe," said the
brute, "how difficult it is to administer the chicotte properly. One
should spread out the blows so that each shall give a fresh pang. Then we
have a law which forbids us to give more than twenty-five blows in one
day, and to stop when the blood flows. One should, therefore, give
twenty-four of the blows vigorously, but without risking to stop; then at
the twenty-fifth, with a dexterous twist, one should make the blood
spurt." ("Le Congo Francais," Challaye.) The twenty-five lash law, like
all other laws, has no relation at all to the proceedings in the Upper
Congo.
Monsieur Stanislas Lefranc, Judge on the Congo, and one of the few men
whose humanity seems to have survived such an experience, says:
"Every day, at six in the morning and two in the afternoon, at each State
post can be seen, to-day, as five or even ten years ago, the savoury sight
which I am going to try to depict, and to which new recruits are specially
invited.
"The chief of the post points out the victims; they leave the ranks and
come forward, for at the least attempt at flight they would be brutally
seized by the soldiers, struck in the face by the representative of the
Free State and the punishment would be doubled. Trembling and terrified,
they stretch themselves face down before the captain and his colleagues;
two of their companions, sometimes four, seize them by their hands and
feet and take off their waistcloth. Then, armed with a lash of
hippopotamus hide, similar to what we call a cow-hide, but more flexible,
a black soldier, who is only required to be energetic and pitiless, flogs
the victims.
"Every time the executioner draws away the chicotte a reddish streak
appears upon the skin of the wretched victims who, although strongly
built, gasp in terrible contortions.
"Often the blood trickles, more rarely fainting ensues. Regularly and
without cessation the chicotte winds round the flesh of these martyrs of
the most relentless and loathsome tyrants who have ever disgraced
humanity. At the first blows the unhappy victims utter terrible shrieks
which soon die down to low groans. In addition, when the officer who
orders the punishment is in a bad humour, he kicks those who cry or
struggle. Some (I have witnessed the thing), by a refinement of brutality,
require that, at the moment when they get up gasping, the slaves should
graciously give the military salute. This formality, not required by the
regulations, is really a part of the design of the vile institution which
aims at debasing the black in order to be able to use him and abuse him
without fear."--"Le Regime Congolais," Liege, Lefranc.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Crime of the Congo, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle