Stewart's Present State oj Jamaica. 



GO'S 



An English statute law, to liave force 

 in Jamaica, must be re-enacted by tlie 

 legislature there. 



Tiie English liankruptcy laws are not, 

 as has been said, in force here; but 

 there is, in lion, the " Insolvent Debt- 

 ors' Act," I>y which a debtor, on making 

 oath that he is possessed of no property, 

 above bare necessaries, and delivering 

 liis books, if he has any, into the iiands 

 of the deitnly-marsiial, or sherifl's de- 

 puty, is, after remaining tiuce months 

 in jail, exonerated from all demands 

 against him. 



By a law of the island, no person can 

 leave it wilhont advertising his inten- 

 tion three weeks before baud; in which 

 case it is in the power of a creditor to 

 .sto)) him till his demand be satisfied ; 

 and if any master of a vessel lakes him 

 IVom the island without such public no- 

 tice, he subjects himself to a heavy pe- 

 nalty. Persons intending to leave the 

 island are legally obliged, besides thus 

 inibiishing their intention, to take out 

 a ticket, or passport, signed by the 

 ffovcrnor, from the secretary's office, 

 for which they pay £1 Gs. 3d. 



SL4VE LAWS. 



The consolidated slave-laws, or code 

 of laws enacted chiefly for the protec- 

 tion of the slaves, is a separate cctde, 

 the result of a more enlightened and 

 humane view of the duties of masters to 

 their slaves, and of the necessity of en- 

 forcing the performance of those duties 

 by positive enactments, which has been 

 }!:radually gaining ground in the West 

 Indies for the last thirty- five years— 

 before which time the condition of the 

 unhappy slave depended in a great 

 measure on the will and pleasure of his 

 master. These laws contain many ex- 

 cellent and humane provisions, whicii, 

 were they duly carried into execution, 

 wonld render the condition of the slaves 

 a.s secure and comfortabli as the state 

 and nature of slavery would admit. 

 But there are obstacles to the due exe- 

 cution of those laws which must first be 

 removed ere they can have full effi- 

 eioncy : the principal of these is the 

 absolute legal nullity of the evidence of 

 a slave against a white man. 



All trials of slaves, even those for 

 capital oflcnccs, arc carried on in the 

 petty courts, or (piartcr-scssious of the 

 respective parishes. These trials are 

 usually conducted with the most perfect 

 regard to impartial justice, and gene- 

 rally with a leaning of mercy towards 

 the delinquent. The court appoints 

 counsel to conduct Lis defence. When 



a white man stands accused of the mur- 

 der of a slave, he is tried in the supreme 

 court, or either of assize-courts, ac- 

 cording to the county in which the mur- 

 der has been committed. Should he be 

 convicted, he suffers the same penalty 

 of the law as a slave would who had 

 been convicted of killing a white man. 

 The great difficulty is to bring home 

 legal evidence against the former. 



In 1821, a white man shot a slave, 

 employed along with others by a de- 

 puty-marshal to assist in making a levy 

 of slaves belonging to this man, on a 

 writ against him. The evidence of the 

 other slaves so employed was nugatory ; 

 and the marshal's follower who headed 

 them, having been convicted of perjury 

 on a former occasion, his evidence was 

 deemed inadmissible by the court. The 

 culprit would accordingly have been 

 acquitted for want of evidence, had it 

 not been for the testimony of two of his 

 own witnesses (his housekeeper and his. 

 daughter), who, in their cross-exami- 

 nation, admitted the fact of his having 

 shot the slave, uniler the impression of 

 its being a justifiable act in defence of his 

 property. On this evidence he was 

 convicted and executed, though recom- 

 mended to mercy by the jury. His 

 housekeeper and daughter were free 

 persons of colour, — a class of people 

 whose evidence some years ago was 

 inadmissible against the whites, — a 

 disability since very properly removed 

 by the legislature. 



RELIGION. 



The established religion of Jamaica is 

 that of the church of England. Each 

 parish has a rector and a curate. The 

 rectors have a stipend of 4201. cur- 

 rency, and a parsonage-house, a very 

 inadequate income for a clergyman in 

 the West Indies, were there no other 

 emoluments attached to the livings; but 

 this stipend does not form a fourth part, 

 and, in some parishes, not, perhaps, 

 above an eighth part of the average m- 

 come of the rectors. Their fees are the 

 principal source of their incomes, which 

 vary from about 15001. to 30001. and 

 even upwards, according to the wealth 

 and population of the respective pa- 

 rishes. Kingston may be regarded as 

 the most productive rectory in the 

 island, and next to it, St. Catherine's, 

 St. Thomas in the East, St. James's, 

 and Trelawny. The fees arise from 

 marriages, baptisms, and funerals ; also 

 permission to erect monuments in tlio 

 church, &c. The fees for marrying and 

 baptizing, as fixed by law, are very mo- 

 derate 



