assault. Equally insufficient is the argument that revenge for similar violence on the part of white men is the motive which impels a negro to subject an unwilling woman to the most humiliating experience that it is possible to imagine. The colored women are not forced in these days to accept the approaches of a white man. He who will look but a little upon the seamy side of life in Louisiana and in Jamaica will see enough to convince him that the number of colored women who have intimate relations with white men is far larger than it should be. The few negro men in the United States who have had a trial for rape did not urge in extenuation that a sister, wife or other female relative had been subjected to any indignity by white men; least of all were these rapists able to show that the male relatives of their victims had ever done harm to the self-appointed avenger. No; the root of the difficulty is to be found in the base, sensual nature of the negro whose sexual appetite is, at periods, so strong—either by nature or by repeated indulgence in the past-that it overcomes his reason. Rape does not occur in Jamaica because there are many black women with whom the brutish negro can have companionship. It is a hilly country where every Jack can have his Jill, and where many neglect to go to a clergyman or a magistrate before living together. The present writer would not be understood as defaming the lowest class in Jamaica, and indirectly elevating the negro women in his own country. He can not, for the sake of decency, expand his views on this subject even in a periodical intended to be read by adults, nor is it necessary to repeat what has been well said elsewhere in the accounts of African explorers respecting the sexual life of negroes, and in journals devoted to ethnic and criminal anthropology. Certain physiological realities must be faced fearlessly by a man who desires to pass an unprejudiced judgment on the subject of rape. The alleged reason for its non-occurrence in Jamaica is here presented after more than fifty years of observation of male negroes under a variety of circumstances, after tours on foot in various parts of the island when the domestic conditions of the low class of blacks could be seen, after re

stricted observation at night, and after conversation with police officials (white men) who have been in Jamaica a number of years.

No doubt the superiority of the police force and the excellent code of practice in the courts are collectively of great help in making Jamaica a safer place for white women than Mississippi. And this is said with full knowledge that the island contains a region—the cockpit, unexplored and inhabited by maroons to which a criminal might flee. If a black man in Jamaica should deliberately plan to assault a white woman, he might also arrange to escape to this class of blacks who are left to themselves by the government. They, however, in all probability would give him up when the crime had been explained to them, in order to maintain their present independent condition; but if they refused, a mounted force would be sent into their country, just as the English went into Abyssinia and Egypt some years ago, and if the criminal were found and identified, there is no doubt he would be punished in a way to strike terror in the minds of all evil doers. The spirit which manifested itself at the close of the Sepoy rebellion in India has not died out in the minds of the present white rulers of Jamaica, and black men are convinced of this by their experience with minor breaches of law.

Aside from all physiological or psychological reasons for the crime now under consideration, we should consider the sudden change in the United States from slavery to a nominal democracy which is implied in some of the laws and customs, and which the half-educated negro wishes to enforce or extend. In Jamaica this has not been the case. Slavery was abolished more gradually, and the history of the development of the blacks shows that British administrators were in no hurry to bring them up to a level with white people. For the ignorant blacks of Jamaica a white woman is nearly the embodiment of the distant Queen, towards whom they were taught to have almost a divine affection, since it was by the action of London officialsof whom the Queen is the head-that they were set free. The negro in America learns nothing of that kind in study

ing the history of his own country. There is more in it to make him resentful and discontented than to encourage him to work hard and save his money. He fails to learn that he must follow the example of the successful emigrant who begins with nothing but strong, untrained hands.

The criminal negro in America, like all others of his class often combines the animus of a daredevil with that of a parasite. Knowing the paucity and inefficiency of the police power in the community where he lives, he ventures his life in a game with the sheriff's deputies, with much the same spirit that prompts the gambler to play at high stakes. The law-abiding citizens do not wish to incur the expense of maintaining a body of men in uniform, as in Jamaica, who shall keep desperadoes in awe. In the sparsely settled districts of the South the men would rather organize a vigilance committee when serious crime occurs, and, with the help of bloodhounds, chase the fleeing perpetrator. If they find the fugitive they do not hesitate to put an end to his existence when the case is clear, and when his former life has been tainted with minor crimes. Can we blame them when the customary methods in a court house are so slow and faulty; and specially following the crime of rape, when the principal witness must be subjected to a second agony on the stand, even in a trial with closed doors? It is to avoid this exposure of shame before twelve strange men that jails are stormed in order to lynch a man whom more than twelve men believe to be guilty.

In Jamaica the source of authority is well defined by a succession of individuals from the inspector to the governor sent out from England. All these men are appointed, not elected or changed every few years. They are trained to do certain things as a life work, and they hope to advance by their merits rather than by favoritism or by the results at the polls. These fundamental differences in the form of government, when we compare Florida, for instance, with Jamaica, account for much of the difference in results when dealing with a backward race which, when left to itself, could never maintain a limited monarchy, much less a republic.

The unstable and oppressive methods of government that have been engendered on the neighboring island of Haiti are known to all intelligent Jamaicans, and they have never made much earnest effort to separate their portion of the Antilles from English control. They appreciate how much has been done, and is still being done for them by the religious people of England, and they are ready to believe that the ideals thus instilled into them are better than the teachings brought to Haiti from France and Spain. Once in a while a hot-headed young man-chafing against the strict enforcement of some law-comes into print and advocates the independence of Jamaica. His self-confidence is greatly lessened when some older man points him to the retrograde and bankrupt condition of Liberia, which, in its development and influence upon the "hinter land," is now far below the hopes of Ashmun and other philanthropists, who did so much nearly one hundred years ago to give Liberia a good start.

No one can doubt that life means more to the negro when he is in some way associated with the white race, but whether his highest development is to be in South Africa, in the West Indies or in the United States is a question for the future to decide.

THE INDUSTRIAL FUTURE OF SHANSI PROVINCE

By Rev. Paul L. Corbin of Shansi Province

The province of Shansi is in the northern tier of the original eighteen provinces of China, and lies between Latitude 35° and 41° North and Longitude 111° to 114° East. The province is bounded on the north by Mongolia, on the east by Chihli, the metropolitan province, on the south and west by the Yellow River, separating it from Honan and Shensi provinces respectively. The area of the province, not including the districts lying to the north of the Great Wall, is about 56,000 square miles. Its population has been variously estimated from 9,500,000 to 12,000,000.

The importance of the province from an industrial viewpoint lies in two facts: first, it has vast deposits of mineral wealth; second, it is, in a sense, the gateway to the northwest of China and the heart of Asia. Certain lines of travel across the province have long indicated that one of its problems when the awakening to the touch of western civilization comes will be the problem of transportation. The chief problem in its industrial development, however, concerns its mineral wealth.

Before discussing either of these problems it may be well to describe the general topography of the province. Rising from the low plain which covers the greater portion of Chihli Province are ranges of hills extending from north to south. Shansi lies amid these hills. It is made up of successive ranges, bisected by water-courses, and with three elevated plains, or basins. The greater number of streams in the mountains are, naturally, tributary to the Yellow River: the river of chief importance among these is the Fên, which drains the central, largest, and most important of the three plateaus. The lower ranges of hills are of the wonderful loess formation, and are tillable. The higher ranges approach to the dignity of mountains, and are, for the most part,