CHAPTER VI. 



The poverty of Jamaica — Depreciation and diminution of exports 

 — The market value of estates — Corresponding prostration in 

 the other British West India colonies. 



It is difficult to exaggerate, and yet more difficult to de- 

 fine, the poverty and industrial prostration of Jamaica. 

 The natural wealth and spontaneous productiveness of the 

 island are so great that no one can starve, and yet it seems 

 as if the faculty of accumulation were suspended. All the 

 productive power of the soil is running to waste ; the finest 

 land in the world may be had at any price, and almost for 

 the asking ; labor receives no compensation, and the pro- 

 duct of labor does not seem to know the way to market. 

 Families accustomed to wealth and every luxury, have wit- 

 nessed the decline of their incomes, until now, with undi- 

 minished estates, they find themselves wrestling with 

 poverty for the commonest necessaries of life. There are no 

 public amusements here of any kind, for amusements are 

 purchased with the surplus wealth of people, and here there 

 is no surplus. There was not a theatre, or a museum, or 

 a circus, or any other place of entertainment, involving ex- 



