This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Please enable Javascript and reload the page.

Black Republic of Letters

Note – Henry Morton Stanley

Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904) was a Welsh-American explorer and journalist. He traversed Africa many times, most famously successfully locating Dr. Samuel Livingstone. He later helped establish the territory of the Belgian Congo on behalf of King Leopold II. Learn more about Henry Morton Stanley.

This page is referenced by:

"Meandering" Translation:

We have accepted the task of putting together, every other week, for the readers of La Fraternité, news from the world of science. It is hardly necessary to mention that, in the diverse questions about which we will speak, we will never deal with long theoretical explanations, abstract discussions, which are only appropriate in special publications. We will consider, as is proper here, only the practical side of things. It may nevertheless come to pass that we will dwell on details that seem insignificant to some of our readers. We ask that they would always remember that we are writing for a very diverse public.

Haiti is not at the pinnacle of progress, not by a long shot. We come to Paris for illumination. The country of the Yankees, although only six or seven days away from Haiti, seems to us... a bit further than France. Optical illusion, if you like; the illusion is dear to us. Furthermore, in the Americas all minds are not swept up by the very real but limited power of the Yankees. And if we say here a country rich with wonders, it is only to use the current language of Europe. We believe, moreover, that of a long list of inventions of the century, the United States [in English] owe a lot to the States of the old continent. But the prejudice is real. Yet one will not be too surprised to discover, one day, that European inventors have exploited it to their benefit. They look to the American flag, the Americana patent. Look! Look! And such a great American inventor—worthy of the admiration of the rest of the world—is perhaps twice the patenter of inventions...

Do you know what Edison gave Stanley as a wedding gift? You guessed it, a phonogram engraved with the march played in Westminster Abbey during the bridal blessing ceremony. For an end of the century gift, that was very fin de siècle.

A word of advice: the day of your wedding, buy a phonograph. Later, after the honeymoon, you can tell me the news.

This little instrument has more than one surprise; one never tires of saying it. Thus it can be said that stenographers are sleeping with one eye open. Phonographs are threatening them with a fearful competition. Consider what happened at the Chicago Auditorium, where Mr. Depew, the well known New York orator, recently gave a speech on the 1893 Exposition. Operators placed in front of phonographs to record the words of the speaker, repeated them quietly into the tube of their device. And Mr. Depew, it seems, had yet to finish his speech when the city's newspapers had already received printed proofs of the first part. In effect, when the wax cylinder is fully engraved it is brought to another operator who has the speech repeated at the desired speed, and draws out the proofs with the help of a printing machine. But, with the help of progress, instead of passing the cylinders on to another operator, they will soon put them in immediate communication with telephones, connected to the printers of the city's newspapers. Time is money [English in original]. By that time, we will describe typographical work thus: a telephonic tube arranging characters in a composing stick, by way of a high school graduate...The way things are going...

The "Time is money" [English in original] applied to the question of the pain of death already preoccupied the inventors of the guillotine. They approached the problem thus: given the unlimited number of aristocrats, the best way to get rid of as many as possible in a limited number of hours. It was all there. Carrier found the solution in the use of flat bottom boats.

Today, to shield from the inconveniences of the "Kemmler chair," one would use.... the complete antithesis, a compressed air chamber. It is true that this device was invented higher outcomes. The workers fixed into it, far from being victims, are all conquerors. The members of the press that took part in the underwater banquet, whose guests included the director of the of the workers of the bridge at Ciotat, emerged safe and sound. I believe, however, that if—over champagne—they had been reminded that they had eight metres of salt water over their heads and that the slightest lapse in the the function of the air pumps would have instantly made killed the guests, one would have been met with disapproving cries of "Shame" [English in original].

But the example will be followed. Before long you will hear people talking about underwater restaurants, and that's when the expression sous-l'eaugraphie will acquire its true sense. I'm actually shocked that, to complement the Eiffel Tower, they have not yet dug an 800-metre well, with a platform elevator, etc.

From one extreme to the other. They relate, for that matter. Consider the way Europe is avoiding war: armed peace. The States are staring each other down. It is up to the one who portrays itself as the most fearsome, who has the most perfected engines of war. And as soon as one country has finished arming its troupes with a new model gun, another newer model suddenly appears. Thus, the Italian war committee has just been presented with an automatic weapon that has the speed of 51 shots per minute.

There is also Mr. Paul Giffard's gas pistol. It's a clever idea. The principle behind the invention is the expansion force of liquified gasses coming back to the gaseous state.

A heavy-duty case, containing liquid carbonic acid, is placed under the barrel. The movement of the trigger acts on a valve system to let a drop of liquid through, which turns to gas in the bore of the gun, and shoots the bullet forward.

Let's hope that the inventor hurries to make the necessary perfections for it to be adopted in use.

F. Doret
Speech by His Eminence Cardinal Lavigerie (Continued)

In those diverse countries, each nation remains independent, and can now work toward its own interests, while ensuring the work of all. The political transformation of Africa was thus hastened, without a violent jolt, by the two passions that nobly and effectively motivate peoples: the love of humanity and the love of country.

I say the same thing about the Anti-Slavery Campaign.

From the beginning, this double thought was the same as that of the great Pope who called for our devotion.

He wanted, by the free cooperation of all without distinction of nationality, to bring about the abolition of a scourge, withered by all civilized nations. It will be one of the most noble sights in history that in two years, responding to the voice of that great old man, such a resolution was proposed, taken and proclaimed in the General Act of Brussels, by the vote of the nations.

But our crusade would have gone the way of the political division of Africa if, after we had been united in a common spirit to demand solemn engagements from the powers, we did not share the sphere where each of us must act.

That is what the Holy Father wanted.

Our Campaign was thus divide from the beginning, in the anticipation of its current situation, into as many Committees as there are different nations that take a practical interest in the future of our Continent. Each of these Committees must focus on the regions in Africa that are under the dependency of the nation to which they themselves belong. No doubt, all Christian governments of Europe maintain the liberty to employ the support that they spontaneously propose for themselves in their domains, wherever they come from. English, American and French workers offered themselves to Belgium. It was for the latter that Stanley crossed Africa two times. It was in this domain that our heroic Joubert courageously armed, for ten years, the nègres on the shores of Tanganyika, to maintain the peace there with his little troupe and to protect our anti-slavery missions.

The powers are engaged in giving liberty and protection to all who present themselves to aid in the destruction of slavery: Incorporated companies, isolated individuals, or missionaries.

The Committees of the Anti-Slavery Campaign incorporated under our auspices or those of the Holy See, it is thus, after God and the poor Blacks, for their respective fatherlands that they want to work. United in their hearts in one thought which is that of the cessation of the evils of Africa, we had, in serving religion and humanity, the desire and the will to each serve our own respective country, in the lands that are specially set aside for it, bringing an end to slavery there: the English in those of England, the Germans in those of Germany, the Portuguese, the Belgians, the Spanish and the Italians in those of Portugal, Belgium, Spain and Italy; and, finally, since I am speaking today in front of a French audience, the French in those of France.

The members of France's National Committee know the new field that Providence opens, after so many others at this time, ahead of them.

France did not wait for the current times to begin the African conquest. She preceded nearly all other people in this immense duel of civilization and barbarity. For over half a century, she has worked in Algeria, in Senegal, in the Atlantic Ocean colonies, and more recently, finally, in Tunisia. But between these countries that have belonged to her on the two seas, an immense region still remains, almost as large as half of Europe and where slavery demonstrates the worst cruelties, perhaps, than in the rest of the Black continent; in the Soudan where Muslim princes have raised it to the status of a public institution, with their nègres de trésor, in the Sahara which serves as the place of exportation and of incessant passage, with nameless barbarians, to the slaves destined for markets in Morocco, Turkey, Tripolitania. It seems that behind the doors we had opened so wide to European civilization, to its trade, its arts, its industry, its faith, rises like an impassable barrier in the wild solitude of the deserts. To travel from the coast of the Mediterranean, where we are masters, and which today we can reach in just two days thanks to the developments in steam travel, it is necessary, to penetrate to the Soudan, which offers us so many hopes, with its numerous populations, its natural products, its silver and gold mines, to bypass half a continent and go up the Niger, with innumerable fees and perils, whereas, with a railroad, in four days, a railroad would permit us to open our France, to Europe, the last depths of Africa.

So many times I have heard our men of war lamenting that they were not allowed, from the very beginning, to push their conquest further. So many times I myself, after crossing the plains already invigorated by the bravery, the richness, the genius of our soldiers, have said with sadness at the edge of the desert: ahead of us, now, and to the extremities of Africa, millions of souls and innumerable tribes, are inescapably buried in an abyss of evils, in the midst of tropical splendour, and all that separates us is these arid sands. But one day, with the marvels of modern industry, we will be able to vanquish the deserts and cross them in perhaps less time than it took me to come from Algiers to these oases. O God, I would add, may this one day be the work of France!

In these thoughts, that my hopes brought me to, I wanted, for the past twenty-two years, to prepare the Christian possession of these lost regions. Pius IX, with his ardent courage, came into these same views, and a pontifical act of 6 August 1868 placed the Sahara desert and all the regions of the interior Soudan that extend beyond the missions already established on the Ocean by the Holy See under the special jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Algiers, with the mission to prepare the way for Christian liberty and the Gospel.

(More to follow)

This page references:

Henry Morton Stanley Image