458 TRINIDAD. 



lands, by the owner ; and in respect of abandoned lands, by any 

 one. Where lands belonged to the Government, or were aban- 

 doned, possession was given to the warden or Surveyor- General ; 

 where land belonged to private persons, to the owner. It must 

 be acknowledged that the object contemplated by the measure was 

 not attained; probably because it was not properly enforced. 

 Ten years later the well-directed efforts of Sir Arthur Gordon 

 were crowned with signal success. 



A most important measure introduced by Lord Harris was 

 his system of primary education. I regret to be obliged to say 

 that it was an altogether Godless system ; ministers of religion 

 were excluded from the school-room, so also all direct religious 

 teaching. This measure of Lord Harris, when proposed, was 

 disapproved by Catholics, and even by Protestants. It is still 

 partly in force. I dare say that, in its results, it was not very 

 encouraging. Certainly morality has not improved in the island ; 

 quite the reverse. The plan of Lord Harris was complete in its 

 scope ; for it contemplated the establishment of normal schools 

 both for boys and girls, and of a school of secondary instruction, 

 all on the same system. Of course Lord Harris meant well 

 but he allowed himself to be influenced by the then prevailing 

 notion that Government owed to the subjects only secular in- 

 struction, at least in communities composed of various religious 

 denominations. That in all such cases the State should be bound 

 to give only secular instruction is safe enough, but that it should 

 exclude religious teaching and the ministers of religion altogether 

 from the school-room, is simply exorbitant. It was teaching 

 the people that the State does not care about religion and the 

 morals it teaches. 



In the year 1851 an Ordinance was passed for supplying 

 Port-of-Spain and vicinity with water, a benefaction which can- 

 not be too highly appreciated. Previously the inhabitants of 

 the town drew their supply of water from wells, the contents 

 of which were, in most cases, contaminated by the percolation of 

 privy stuff ; or from tanks in which rain water was collected. 

 Bathing was then a rare luxury. The rate payable was calcu- 

 lated according to the annual rental, an arrangement which was 

 highly beneficial to the poorer classes ; a house assessed at £100 

 sterling annually paying five times as much as a house rented 

 at £20. 



