Istwa Nou

John Laroche became Leconte's minister of public works, and late in 1910 he had written down what he was inheriting. Streets turned to mud in the rain. Roads were broken enough to stop goods moving. Bridges shook, and when they fell the towns lost contact with the countryside. The jails had holes in them. The iron markets were rusting for want of maintenance. The telegraph wire had been up more than fifteen years. Port-au-Prince had broken water mains. The army posts looked like abandoned shacks. Leconte repaired streets and roads, and the first automobiles began working their way around the capital. Telegraph lines were restrung and new ones built, and by July 1912 Furniss could telephone Port-au-Prince from Grand Gosier while touring the back country on horseback. Leconte also moved against Vodou, denouncing it as a crude cult, in a season when the British minister was reporting to London that he had seen a temple with its sacred tree, its stone and its graves half a mile outside the capital.