Notes on a Trip to Surinam. 149 
behind the Strand and one or two short streets linking up that street with the 
square of which the Moravian Church forms a centre piece, while other business 
avenues extend along to the Plaat in which the Public Buildings and Govern- 
ment House stand. The large area included indicates that a volume of busi- 
ness, by no means inconsiderable, must be done. Some of the xetail stores are 
quite wp to date in the attractive exteriors with which they allure their patrons. 
JEWS IN TRADE. 
A fair proportion of the business is in the hands of the large Jewish element, 
German and Portuguese, of whom there are about 7,000 in Surinam. In this 
connection a curious development occurred some years ago. Most of the 
retail stores were in the hands of the Hebrews, and their ideas of a fair margin 
of profit on goods sold were liberal to themselves in a degree which seemed to 
the clergy of the Moravian Church, oppressive for purchasers. 
MoraAvIAN COMPETITION. 
With a view to liberate their own people from exactions, the Moravia! 
brotherhood embarked in trade, soon had a large and flourishing store which 
still runs and monopolises a good share of the retail business of the colony- 
Only the other day an organ of public opinion ‘“ Die West ” took the brethren 
sharply to task for using the pulpit instead of the Press for the purpose of 
advertising the arrival of a shipment of fresh and attractive goods. It is, 
however, whispered that on occasion, quotations for butter, lard and salt-fish 
have been heard within the sacred precincts of the synagogue. 
A PETITION v. ALIENS. 
It was doubtless the feeling that the competition of the clergy was a quite 
sufficient invasion of their Hebrew claim to the spoil of the Gentiles that led to 
a petition from the Jews of Surinam praying the Government to restrain from 
trading within the colony all persons other than citizens of the State of Holland 
or natives of the colony, until such alien persons had resided at least two years 
in Dutch Guiana. The petition failed, it is true, but indicates at least a lively 
sense of their large importance in the body politic on the part of the petitioners. 
SYNAGOGUES. 
Two synagogues, one German, the other Portuguese, survive to mark the dis- 
tinction which once existed between the sections of that great race, driven out 
to the far West Indies under the common stress of oppression in the countries 
of their adoption. In matters social and commercial they have now coalesced, 
it appears, and form one community, a little tinged here and there perhaps 
with infusions of blood not strictly Semitic. The only sign of the old division 
is the existence of the two synagogues. Their commercial rivals of the 
Moravian Church are a much larger community, which divides with the 
Lutheran about half the population, while another 15,000 or so belong to the 
Dutch Reformed, a similar number to the Roman Church and these, with 25,000 
East Indians, 18,000 Javanese, a few Chinese, and probably 2,000 or 3,000 
labourers from this colony always present, maké up the population which is 
considerably less than half that of our colony. 
