to the terrible ravages committed in the interior by two visitations of cholera. The decennial epoch should certainly not have been allowed to expire without a fresh attempt being made to procure reliable statistics on this most important of all subjects, so far as Jamaica is concerned, but absolute bankruptcy of the treasury has hitherto left me no choice."*

From these few facts, the decline of labor, the depreciation of property, the abandonment of estates, the excess of expenditure over income, and a bankrupt treasury, each a sequence of the other, the most careless observer of human nature could write the history and character of the population. We might multiply figures enough to fill volumes on this one point of the material decline of Jamaica. The blue books are full of them, but it would merely tire the reader, and the above appear to be amply sufficient.

We may now trace the intimate connection of immorality, ignorance, and irreligion, with laziness, in doing which, according to the observations of the highest official authorities and of intelligent travellers, the reader will seem to be perusing only that which he has already seen with the eyes of his imagination.

It is well known that among the negroes in all countries and conditions, the great crimes of civilized countries are comparatively rare. Their vices are rather universal sloth, ignorance, pilfering, and the most sensual and degrading immorality, and this species of vice appears to be on the increase in Jamaica. Governor Barkly in his despatch to the Duke of Newcastle, dated May 30, 1854, writes that:

"The judges unite in deploring the increase of crime of an immoral and degrading character, and I am afraid," he remarks, "that if the police system were as effective as it ought to be, many more convictions would take place."t

The commander of the United States ship Princeton informed the Hon. Miss Murray, while in Havana, that he had just returned from a visit to Jamaica, after an interval of ten years' absence, and that he was surprised and shocked at the rapid deterioration of the island; the blacks were "fast sinking into a state of gross vice and immorality;" "ladies could not venture out without danger of insult ;" he considered the island as well as all the British West Indies on the road to ruin ; "and this," says Miss Murray, "is the opinion of every observer I have met with lately, who has been among them-people of different professions and of various shades of politics."

In a memorial, addressed by the council and assembly of Jamaica, to her majesty, the Queen, dated February 19, 1852, after alluding to the distressed condition of the island, and the probable complete abandonment of sugar culture throughout the British Antilles, unless a remedy were provided, the moral deterioration of the island is thus noticed:

In conclusion we would humbly entreat the consideration of your majesty, to the moral effects which must be produced on the lower classes of the population

Par. Rep., 1856, vol. xlii.

† Par. Rep., 1854-'55.

+ Letters from Cuba, &c. By the Hon. Amelia M. Murray; vol. ii., p. 81.

of this island by the general abandonment of property and withdrawal of capital, now unhappily in progress. Convinced that in granting freedom to the British slave, it never was intended to allow him to sink into a state of barbarism and uncivilization, we still feel it our humble duty to assure your majesty, that the downward progress of the agricultural resources of the colony has been already accompanied by a retrogression in moral conduct on the part of the lower classes, and we are assured that this retrogression must and will, for obvious reasons, keep pace with the destruction of property, and the consequent expulsion from the colony of all whom necessity may not compel to residence, events that must speedily occur, unless your majesty shall be pleased graciously to receive our petition, and we obtain from the Imperial Parliament efficient aid, ere ruin and desolation shal have taken the place of prosperity and cultivation, and religion and morality shall have been superseded by barbarism and superstition."'*

This appeal, earnest as it is, and sad as is the picture drawn, is fully supported in its statements by the representations made by the custos, and clergy, and other inhabitants of St. George, at a public meeting held in July, 1852, and we must suppose that the ministers of religion would not only know pretty well the condition of the negroes, but that they would not desire to make it worse than it really was. In their memorial the following remarks occur:

"The laboring population increase in idleness. So far from seeking labor or employment, or being stimulated by the desire of obtaining wages, they become daily more indifferent, more unwilling, and more idle; preferring squatting on their own, or clandestinely occupying the lands of other persons, particularly those of abandoned estates, i. e. abandoned as to cultivation, but not abandoned as to ownership. They attend less to the instruction of their religious pastors and ministers they pay less attention to the education of their children, if it is attended with any contribution from themselves. Vice and immorality are on the increase, and shortly, if the island does not revive from its present prostration, it will revert into semi-barbarism."t

:

Captain Hamilton, on his examination, as a witness before a select committee of Parliament, stated that Jamaica had become "a desert," and being asked if he thought the term "desert" was quite applicable to the state of things there, replied: "I should say peculiarly applicable, without any exaggeration."‡

It would afford us some consolation if we could only believe that all this vice and moral deterioration belonged principally to the generation passing away, but, unfortunately, the very latest accounts from the island-those of March, 1858-show too plainly that the degradation of the parents is fully inherited with interest, as is generally the case, by the children. We read in the report of a committee, interested in the cause of education, who lately assembled in the capital of the island, the following statements:

"It is a fact no less true than startling, that since the abolition of slavery, in spite of all our efforts to grapple with crime, juvenile depravity has been materially and progressively increasing throughout the island, and especially in Kingston, its great mercantile metropolis.

Merchants and shop-keepers, masters and mistresses were suffering

Par. Rep., 1852-53: Colonies.

Par Rep., vol. lxvii., 1852-153.

Par. Rep., vol. xxxix., 1852-53.

from having their property pilfered by a horde of vagrant children, whose whole livelihood consisted in picking and stealing.

"It is no unfrequent occurrence," continues the report, "to hear obscene words and dreadful oaths shouted from the lips of children, hardly able to speak, but who, it is too evident, have obtained a fearful precocity in wickedness. But the far more fruitful source of juvenile depravity, is to be found in the growing neglect of marriage, and consequent prevalence of concubinage, among the poorest classes of the community. In addition to this, many of the artisans and small tradesmen of Kingston have emigrated from Jamaica, leaving deserted families, so that from these and other causes, the number of illegitimate and fatherless children, bears an almost incredible proportion in the statistics of births. In Kingston alone, hundreds of children perish annually within the first few hours of their existence."*

This statement seems to confirm, or further explain, the statistical fact in Gov. Barkly's despatch of May, 1855, in which it is stated that the returns of schools show a diminution of two thousand children.t

We suppose that history presents no instance, at least, excepting black populations, of a people tumbling into decay and ruin, with the rapidity which the above incontestible facts and observations prove Jamaica to have been doing.

There is generally to be observed among nations, a long struggle extending through many generations, before final decay; the process of decline is gradual, almost imperceptible; but in this island, the people seem to hasten to embrace destruction; their only ambition appears to be to get back as speedily as possible to a state of barbarism, and to live, as their ancestors lived in Africa, in dirty villages, surrounded by filth, removed from all responsibility, and passing their lives in ignorance, immorality and sloth. This course of life is one easily pursued by the negroes of Jamaica and other tropical islands the climate being warm, they require neither clothing nor fires; the fruits of the earth growing almost spontaneously, little or no labor is requisite to procure food; large numbers of estates being

↑ Par. Rep., 1956., vol. xlii.

The Philanthropist. London: April 1, 1858. Ease of subsistence in the West Indies is greatly favored by the plantain or banana, which, when baked before getting fully ripe, is a tolerable substitute for bread, and is used as such in Cuba, where we have been on many plantations without once seeing bread made of flour. Bananas fried, and eaten with sugar and rice, make a very palatable dish, largely used in the south; they are also an excellent fruit in their natural state. An acre of ground planted with bananas will yield, annually, a much larger quantity of food than any other product.

Colonel Flinter estimates that in Porto Rico, the labor of one man is sufficient to maintain two hundred and forty individuals, on plantains, for a year, allowing each man to consume ten daily.-Past and Present State of Puerto Rico, p. 195.

Humboldt, whose researches nothing escapes says:

"I doubt if there exists on the face of the earth another plant, which in a small space, can produce an equal quantity of nourishing food. Eight or nine months after the shoot is planted, the banana begins to develope itself, and the fruit may be gathered in the tenth or eleventh month. In a space of 100 metres square, and in one year, he estimates that

a banana field will yield 4,000 lbs. of nourishing substance. The produce of banana is to that of wheat, as 133 to 1, and to that of potatoes, as 44 to 1.-Essai Politique sur La Nouvelle Espagne, t. 3, pp. 28 to 30.

Lindley says: "They are most valuable plants, both for the abundance of nutritive food afforded by their fruit, called in the tropics plantains and bananas, and for the many domestic purposes to which the gigantic leaves of some species are applied. The latter are used for thatching Indian cottages; for a natural cloth, from which the traveller may eat 7

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66

abandoned, they find it easier to squat," and оссиру lands to which they have no right, than by honest labor to acquire the means of purchase, or if they do purchase, the price is as nothing, owing to the depreciation of property. Education they have no desire for; religious instruction is not wanted; thus large numbers of them pass lives which would disgrace the lowest order of animals; for pigs even, though they may be sluggish, and ignorant, and piggish, can scarcely be called immoral and irreligious.

But all this is not the worst, nor the most cruel result of this sudden emancipation of the negroes from all restraint.

The inevitable consequences of indolence, ignorance, and vice, are filth and disease. Now, in savage countries, as we know, a great many of the worst diseases of civilized life are unknown, and others assume a milder type. Among the Bechuanas, for instance, there is no consumption nor scrofula, and cancer and cholera are unknown.* In Yoruba, though small-pox is common, "it is little regarded, because it seldom proves fatal." But as soon as savage tribes come into close and habitual contact with civilization, they seem to contract all its diseases with a terrible facility, without being able to avail themselves successfully, either of its preventions or its remedies. This has generally been the case with aborigines on their own soil; but when removed, and placed in the situation of the slaves in the United States, with abundant medical attendance, and a mind to exercise that restraint over them, which their own minds are incapable of exercising, their freedom from disease, and successful treatment while sick, has been fully equal to that of the most favored whites. But what is the case with these unfortunate negroes of Jamaica? Improvident, and thrown entirely upon their own resources by their zealous friends, they have pursued a course of life which, while inviting disease, has also precluded the possibility of relief; not even the warmest and most enthusiastic friends of the negro have yet shown themselves humane enough to send a band of physicians to Jamaica to attend the sick bed-sides of 350,000 idle blacks, who have no money to pay them; and the negroes themselves, who in Africa had their list of remedies for all the diseases to which they were liable, have now lost the tradition of them, besides being subjected to a new class of ailments, the treatment of which they never understood. How cruel this single feature of emancipation is, will be seen by the following memorial of the president and members of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, which also tends still further

his food; as a material for basket-making, and finally, they yield a most valuable flax (umsa textilis), from which some of the finest muslins of India are prepared-Lindley's Vegetable Kingdom, p. 163.

*Livingstone, p. 505.

↑ Adventures and Missionary Labors in Africa. By T. J. Bowen, chap. xx. In many parts of Central Africa. however, small-pox is very fatal, see Lander's Journal, chap. xiii. It was even found by Dr. Barth, in the midst of Sahara. Some of the pagan tribes practice inoculation for it but the Mohammedans will not do this, being restrained by religious prejudice. -Barth, vol. 1, chap. xvii, and vol. 2, chap. xxxiii and xxxvii.

to show how health of body, as well as of soul, depends on industry and material prosperity:

"Difficult it would be," says the report, "to overrate or exaggerate the poverty and distress which have now prostrated this once rich and flourishing island, for wherever the eye is turned, wide-spread ruin meets the view. The bustle of business is no longer perceived in our towns; shipping has almost deserted our harbors; the busy industry of the sugar estate has given place to the stillness of desolation, and the cultivated field is lapsing fast into its primeval state of weeds and jungle.

"The decline and fall of the colonial interests, have, as a necessary consequence, affected severely those of our own profession; and many medical men, who formerly practiced here, have been driven away, to seek in other countries that livelihood which was not here to be obtained.

"During the late cholera pestilence, with which it pleased Providence to afflict us, the inadequacy of medical attendance to the wants of the community was made painfully apparent, and thousands fell helpless victims to the disease, whom medical assistance might probably have saved. Another scourge, smallpox,' is at this moment raging as an epidemic in the island, to which many of our peasantry are falling an easy prey, and we regret to assert that diseases generally (the usual attendants of pauperism and misery), have been on the increase during the last few years."

Cholera is literally the scavenger disease, a fact now of practical recognition in all our large cities; more than any other disease, it seeks the haunts of filth and vice, and there slays its thousands. How fearfully must its ravages be increased when not combated by medical aid, nor sufficient sanitary police measures. In Jamaica, Mr. Buxton estimates that during the late visit of this disease and the small pox, 40,000 persons perished! This would be fully equivalent to a decimation of the population.

But let not the reader suppose that Jamaica is an exaggerated case. In Barbadoes, according to Dr. Thomas, out of a population of 140,000 souls, 135,000 were more or less affected-50,000 had cholera in its developed form, and of these 18,000, or thirty-six per cent. died, making a little more than one seventh of the whole population of the island.§ In St. Kitts, according to Dr. Cooper, 3,920 perished, out of a population of 24,571, being nearly one sixth of the whole population, were swept away! Antigua is perhaps better provided with medical attendance than the majority of the British West India islands, and yet we find, in a parliamentary paper, that out of a population of 31,000 souls, not more than 8,056 are provided with regular medical aid.|||

Such details are painful to contemplate, and we cannot help lamenting that a portion of the large sum contributed in the United

* Parliamentary Papers, 1852-53, vol. Ixvii., p. 143. † Times, Jan. 4, 1858. According to Gov. Barkly's estimate, the population has not increased since 1844. It was in that year, according to a not very exact census, 377,433, composed as follows: Blacks..

.293.128