President Geffrard had really a desire to form an army, but the materials at hand were poor. His lower officers were as usual taken from the ranks, and inclined to pilfering. A captain was detected in the act of robbing the custom-house. As he had charge of the guard, the President determined to make an example. I find the incident recounted in my journal written at the time, and as the incidents are very characteristic of the people, I will tell the whole story. The danger of not knowing the connections of those to whom you are speaking may be exemplified by the following:--During the inevitable quarter of an hour before dinner, I was sitting next a charming Haytian lady, educated in England and married to an Englishman, when she began to tell me the news of the day. At the parade that morning the President had ordered the epaulettes of an officer to be torn off his coat on account of a petty theft he had committed at the custom-house. After he had given the order, the President turned away his head, but presently remarked, “Is he dead yet?” “Dead! your Excellency,” exclaimed an aide-de-camp. “Yes, dead. I thought that an officer of my army so publicly disgraced would instantly have put an end to his existence.” The lady’s anecdote produced a hearty laugh, first at the acting of the President, and then at the idea of any Haytian officer having a notion of such delicate honour. I remarked to my companion that the President would have done better, instead of only punishing the petty thieves, to lay a heavy hand on the great robbers, as for instance Mr. ----. The lady quietly turned to me and said, “I am sure you do not know that Mr. ---- is my brother.” The start I gave convinced her that I did not; but I felt uncomfortable until, during dinner, with a nod and a smile, she asked me to take wine with her. Mr. ---- had been engaged with some others in a _détournement_, as it was delicately called, of about seventy thousand dollars, but when I knew him afterwards, he was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and a more unworthy man it would have been difficult even for Hayti to produce. President Salnave had a favourite regiment that he kept up to its full strength, and the men were fairly well disciplined. They were the only men in his pay who really looked like soldiers, but they were most insolent and overbearing. In order to strike terror into the town, Salnave ordered their colonel to march them down to the “Rue des Fronts Forts,” where the retail shopkeepers live, and there gave them leave to plunder. His little speech on this occasion has become a proverb in Hayti--“Mes enfans, pillez en bon ordre.” Whenever there were any political executions, the shooting squad was chosen from among them, and they have the discredit of having been employed to murder all the political prisoners confined in the jail at Port-au-Prince in December 1869.