Banana Engine

A VERY NAKED PEOPLE--Albert Londres--Liveright ($3).

Curious about international white slave traffic, Author Londres once lived with the traffickers, about whom he wrote The Road to Buenos Aires. His latest excursion--to Africa, through French Sudan, the High Volta, the Ivory Coast, Togoland, Dahomey, the Congo--disclosed a black slave traffic. The native African, says he, is a "banana engine" making the roads of a continent at the expense of his life. He may work a month on banana fuel, then find himself owing eleven francs because of huge taxes. Other Londres observations: 1) in French Africa a white man who strikes a black gets fined 25 francs; 2) native Africans practice true communism; 3) all Europe's old clothes and junk are sold to Africans; 4) the Negro is a football between African commerce and politics; 5) Senegalese World War veterans keep letters from French women addressed: "To my Mamadon! To my Sambo! To my dear black boy!"