Various

“ Like a New York garbage boat carrying refuse to the sea, French convict ships dump the offal of humanity on these shores. The Pilgrims came to America with religious convictions, somewhat different from the convictions criminal and otherwise those Frenchmen held who settled Canada, Caledonia and Cayenne. Climate here is one long season of sorrow. Guiana is an outlaw country, a jumping-off place of the world, a back-door to perdition; a dominion of dolour, despair, mud and blood, where Death is the jailer who frees. ”

“ A short skirt is said to be economical in material, sanitary because it is not a street or sidewalk cleaner, and comfortable for locomotion—but when art sacrifices utility in attempt to show the figure, as Venus before Anchises or Medea before Jason, it is a matter not only of comment but censure. Too often on leading thoroughfares we fine a godless model of fashion which is an insult to sex and an outrage on decency. ”

“ They go to church to show their clothes, spend more money for hacks than for Bibles, strut home like peacocks, forgetting that clothes are but the reminders of lost innocency and that to be proud of rustling silk is to be like the madman who laughs at the rattling of his fetters. ”

“ Maybe Los Angeles prognosticators are wrong. Maybe Nevada means business. But the prevalent sentiment is that, unless their love-ship hits the rocks some other way, Mary and Doug may woo and coo until dooms-day—except at such times as they see fit to invite the newspapers en masse to dinner or load down autos and Pullman cars with scribes who would fain not invade their privacy.
Hanging and wiving go by destiny. For every Jonathan Wild there is somewhere an adequate John Ketch; from the ends of the earth, noose and neck rush to meet each other. For every Jack there is some compliant Jill ”

“ American women are willing to wear any skirt that bears a Paris label, but would they if they knew it was a French fashion to advertise demimondaine charms?
If good women, who wear the suggestive short, close-fitting and diaphanous skirt, knew what bad men said when they went by, they would fall dead or call for a taxi and break the speed limit to get home and hide in the cellar.
Men are a bad lot and women should help them to be better and not worse. ”

“ There are men in hospitals and hell who owe their damnation in time and eternity to the skirts of some bad, beautiful woman.
Fashion is the world’s undertaker and often charges a woman a big bill for a body with diseased functions, a mind with dwarfed faculties, and a soul with a future damned. ”

“ The cities of Cayenne and St. Laurent are cities of dreadful day and night where spread
“Infections of unutterable sadness,
Infections of incalculable madness,
Infections of incurable despair.” Faith, hope and charity are banished the colony, and the prisoners are the saddest and weariest of men.
La Belle France has succeeded in establishing and maintaining a hell on earth in French Guiana. Dante says, “There is a place within the depths of hell called Malebolge.” ”

“ If the convict escapes, the French officials don’t care much. He prefers the savage jungle to his savage keeper, fleeing to the bush not half so wild, through fen and flood to Brazil, Dutch and British Guiana. With no weapons for game or hook for fish, they grow mad with hunger, kill each other and have cannibal feasts, for which they are guillotined if captured. ”

“ BY MARION HOLLYWOOD, beautiful little suburb of Los Angeles and famous as America’s leading movie hot-house, is running pretty nowadays with its many wondrous autos and, Oh! those numerous and naughty little, palpitating bungalow intrigues.
The Mary Pickford-Doug Fairbanks romance, is almost old stuff with Mary and Doug on a bit of a honeymoon in New York and London, while forty eleven representatives of the daily papers accompanied them as far as Arizona to watch the Moki Indians get their first glimpse of the screen. ”

“ Miss Sylvia—If you are unfamiliar with the artichoke turn it down. No book can help you. It is one of the most treacherous traps that a newly-rich-society-climber can fall into. I dare not advise you. ”

“ Admitting, for the sake of argument, that things taboo on Tangier Island displease God, why can’t his agents safely leave it to Him to enforce His will and punish those who violate His law? God needs no human avengers. It is an axiom that the only call for human legislation is tangible wrong or harm to some member or members of society. ”

“ A little brunette head is nestled more comfortably on the soft pillows—two sleepy gray-blue eyes glance demurely but searchingly around the room. A tired yawn is suppressed by tiny rosy finger-tips—a small round arm reaches upward, and, presto—the lights go out. ”

“ Clothes are the index of character. A woman is known by the dress she wears. A standard of a country’s or century’s mind and morals is known by its fashion-plate.
Some women are as long in dressing as Caesar was in marshalling his army. ”

“ To avoid ambush they go in gangs, and when they eat or rest watch the four points of the compass. Just as America had an underground railway between the North and South to aid the fugitive slaves, so in Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana, there are agents of a society formed in France who provide food, clothes and money to aid the convict’s escape. There I was informed that the American Bauxite Company engages escaped convicts, and gives them a chance. However, in holy British Guiana, if caught, they are sent back or given so many days to leave the colony, in which case they often fly to Venezuela. ”

“ It is also required by law that you attend the church every Sunday, and as if that is not enough, you are not allowed to be out of your house on Sunday, not even on your own porch, except to go to and from church services. It is frankly claimed by the powers that be, that without such stern compulsion the natives would desecrate the Sabbath by congregating at stores or elsewhere, and then, if the devil should happen to come to claim his own, he might scoop up the whole island population as a consequence. ”

“ Paradoxical as it may seem, the salvation of Cayenne is the convict—he does the work. I talked with a man who employs convicts and he said they were all “good” workers. Many of the other inhabitants, who sweat to get balata and gold, are just as bad outlaws, their life being one guilty round of drink, seduction, cruelty and crime.
The colony is full of physical as well as moral lepers. Like the other Guianas, elephantiasis, leprosy and filthy diseases scurf and scourge. The jungles are full of envenomed serpents. ”

“ Camps are insanitary and full of disease, insects and vermin. After work the exiles are thrust into dark cells of decaying barracks. Still they have some privileges besides death and torture. They are furnished a piece of ground with necessary tools to work it ”

“ In the first of the seventeenth century the settlers not only had before them the interesting fate of being massacred and devoured by the cannibal Indians, but a providential blessing in the form of their mad commander, Sieur de Bretigny, who, not satisfied with torturing the 400 colonists with gibbet, gallows and wheel, amused himself by instituting pleasures called “Purgatory” and “Hell,” in which he forced them to relate even their dreams as to a father confessor; if he were displeased, he maltreated and killed them. ”

“ Hence it often results that an innocent young person will go with others to a restaurant with a shady reputation, either in the spirit of bravado or to discover what the secret is. Often enough the place, on the outside of the life shown there, seems innocent enough and the visitors wonder at the secrecy, innuendo and charm draped about the place. ”

“ Far from the restraint of civilization he becomes a beast in fury, and loves to torment his charge. Hearts as well as stones are broken in these prisons. The convict’s complaint is useless, for his letters are censored, doctored and amputated before they reach home. There was one American down here for stealing. He told a friend of mine he could be trusted up to $500, but any amount over that he would steal. Escaped prisoners taken back to Cayenne are often chained to the deck, lashed and kicked by ruthless black guards, and left to wallow in their excrement. ”

“ The Footpath of Peace To be glad of life, because it gives you a chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars, to be satisfied with your possessions, but not contented with yourself until you have made the best of them ”

“ Felons with sentences for more than five years are compelled to serve an additional term of the same period as settlers in the colony. When a contractor wants convict labor, he gets it from the government for so much money if it can be spared. The “liberes,” though having served their term, are not free to leave the colony, and since the work is done by the regular prisoners, it is hard to land a job. Accordingly, many starve to death, unless they steal provisions. ”

“ To covet nothing that is your neighbor’s except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of Christ; and to spend as much time as you can, with body and with spirit, in God’s out-of-doors ”

“ Moore is well set up and handsome in a masculine way. Doug never could be called a thing of beauty and most of his cowboys display better physical form than the agile laugh-maker.
All the testimony given by Mary at Minden would tend to indicate that the hour in which Owen did not inject a lot of booze into himself, was a rare hour indeed. If Mary asked Owen to come back to her as often as she says she did, figuring he was the lusher as she sets forth, then indeed Owen, if he loves the girl, hasn’t much of a kick coming. ”

“ They are employed as balata-bleeders and in gold-camps, and have built some thrifty miles of road in the country where there is little agriculture or cattle-raising. The little money made is spent on rum and tobacco, and the franc notes saved are tightly rolled up in a small cylindrical receptacle which they use as a suppository to prevent robbery—nevertheless, horrible murders and mutilations are common. There is the cut-throat class sent here from Paris for life. Inhabitants tell you that if they boldly and insultingly beg you for gold, you should give them lead. ”

“ Hector lives with his wife at 375 Park avenue, New York. He seems to take it all as a joke, but his Harriet evidently does not. She alleges that he wooed and won her under the name of Palmer, and also that he ungallantly refuses to pay the rest of the rent so that she can get her needful belongings out of hock; and, to make matters worse, he will not see her any more. But she protests her undying love for him in spite of the way he has wounded her poor, tender little feelings, which ought to be easy for her, seeing the size of his saccharine bank-roll. Heads she wins, tails she loses. ”

“ The Englishmen admit their insulting stories about the Americans, but defend the practice by declaring the stories to be of a friendly character. On the other hand they declare the American insults to be bitter. ”

“ Anyone taking a good look at Lottie would opine that the girl, when angry, might be worth a bet in the real money book.
Not much has been heard of Jack Pickford since he became mixed up in the war time mess. It was no Hollywood secret that Jack was not an over welcome visitor at the home of Mary and her mother for some time. Things may have been calmed over since Mary settled down with Doug, or rather tried to settle down with him.
Olive Thomas, Jack’s wife, recently returned from New York and Jack met her with a Whiz Bang of a new car. Jack claims it cost him bucks to the number of ten thou. ”

“ But who has less sense than a tyrannical religious fanatic? Only a man who expects one such to have any sense at all.
Woman is creation’s best and last work and should be the most attractive thing in the universe. ”

“ Often for petty theft an overseer ties his victim to a tree and beats him with a balata whip. When they do procure work it is big with little wages. It is impossible for the white man to work in the sun or stand like a black man all day in the water. Many convict camps are abandoned on account of unhealthy surroundings.
Poorly fed, the prisoners stalk around like spectres. They receive scanty rice rations for the amount of work they do, and are compelled to beg from everybody. ”

“ Among the other Puritan blue laws of Tangier Island are those prohibiting music anywhere during church service, even though the instrument may be far away and no sound come through the walls; playing ball at any time on Sunday, etc.
It may be a shock to learn that such archaic conditions exist anywhere in the world, let alone in our own country. True enough, we are the most backward people on earth to control landlords and profiteers. ”

“ This is widely accepted as an ancient Hindu legend and nobody would suffer very much for continuing to believe such to be the case, but a gentleman, in answer to a query the other day, completely destroys the foundations for this belief. He says: “The legend of the creation of woman is the creation in English of an English mind; its author is F. W. Bain, and it is to be found in his charming book, ‘A Digit of the Moon.’”
They Answered Him He had only ten dollars left and thought he would have a tour on the railway. ”