deliberately untruthful and is to be compared to the writer who would charge the whole people of the United States with being polygamous because plurality of wives was formerly practised by the Mormons.
There are certainly many superstitions in Haiti, great advantage of which is taken by the papa-loi and the manman-loi. The papa-loi, who is represented in the many books and articles about Haiti as an extraordinary being, is in reality what in the United States and in Europe is called a charlatan, quack, clairvoyant or fortune-teller. Turning to his own account the ignorance or the credulity of those who consult him, the papa-loi does his best to foster the beliefs that he has the power to cure all kinds of diseases, to procure happiness, to insure the success or the failure of all kinds of undertakings, to influence love and hatred, to enrich or impoverish. He profits by his oftentimes great knowledge of the medicinal herbs and tropical plants to gain the confidence of his clients; but he will carefully avoid administering poison. The advantage to be gained by this would not compensate the great risk he would run, as he knows well that, should it be detected, his crime would cost him his life, for in such a case he would be sentenced to death and shot; and no human being needlessly exposes himself to death.
In the United States[1] many cases of poisoning have occurred through flowers and through candies sent by post; at Connellsville, Pa., an attempt was made on the life of a young woman, who received a pair of shoes the heels of which had been hollowed out and filled with nitroglycerin. If such a thing had occurred in Haiti her foreign detractors to a man would ascribe these crimes or criminal attempts to the papa-loi, of whom, however, Haiti is far from having the monopoly. This
- ↑ "Boxes of candy sent by messenger or despatched through the mail have contained poison, and gifts of this kind have produced great sensations. Mortal potions have been sent with flowers. Now comes the report of a shoe sent to a young lady, with enough nitroglycerin congealed in the heel to blow the bearer off her feet." (The Washington Evening Star, May 26, 1905.)
