NORD ALEXIS AS PRESIDENT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 807, 3 May 1910, Page 5

NORD ALEXIS AS PRESIDENT.

HTPPOLITE'S "SUDDEN DEATH." The late President Nord Alexis fought his way to the Haitian rulership, and was ejeoted from it by the same tactics as everyone else attains or quits that office. Those tactics are conspiracy and rebellion, not unm.ixed with. the poison cup. One of the Presidents (Hyppolito), who preceded Nord Alexis, and against whom tho latter led a revolt, ended that way. Hyppolite set out one day to punish Alexis's rebels, but he did not get far. On mounting his horse' on one side lie fell dead on the .other. Tho "heart failure" that caused his end ra traced to the priests ami priestesses of the "vnudoux" savage rites, with whom he was out of favour and who had poisoned him. In 1902 Nord Alexis gained tho upper hand. Even then ho is described as "a man who, verging upon his eightieth year, yet retaining the tropical vigour w.hich one finds in the full-blooded 'negro of a certain type." President Alexis used to receive in a green unifonn. One interviewer writes-.—"His Excellency looked very old. His shoulders were a little bent, and he stooped in walking. His head is long, and his.face is bony. Extraordinary in proportion is the under part of his face, from the side of his nose down to the point of his chin. A huge pair of blue, concave spectacles hid his dark eyes. Hie was the face of a negro, pur sang, one who might have com* straight from darkest Africa. Hie voice was low and rather rough. His French was somewhat better than the patois • which is generally spoken in the island." General Firniin and General Jurneau both led revolts against Alexis, before General Antoine Simon, the present President, succeeded in disposing him.

Jamaica, the British possession where the latest plot was organised, lies about 150 miles from Haiti. Haiti is divided into the two Republics of San Domingo and Haiti, the lntter possessing a population of about one million negroes of African descent and a foiv hundred white traders. It was discovered in 1492 by Columbus, and very soon became the resort of white adventurers, who imported there their "blackbirds," negro slaves from.W«t Africa, who have now dispossessed and absorbed the aboriginal peculation. Haiti beanie a French colonj in 1697, and an independent State in 1804, after a rising of tlie blacks'and a massacre of Europeans. As a link with its, French traditions of the past century, Roman Catholicism is the official religion, but snake worship* and tho pagan rites pf Africa, includine/occasional human saorifioc, still have a firm hold on a great part of the population.