WAGES. 



125 



ley or to Mr. Carlyle, that their readers might feel an in- 

 terest in knowing what the enormous wages were, which 

 failed to overcome the indolence of the " pumpkin eating, 

 two legged cattle, " who compose the operative classes in 

 the West Indies. As information upon this point seemed 

 to be of the very last importance in determining whether 

 there was a scarcity of labor, or certain constitutional in- 

 firmities in the laborers to overcome, which created a ne- 

 cessity for special legislation, I made the current wages 

 of the island the subject of special inquiry. To my utter 

 surprise I learned, that the price for men on the sugar 

 and coffee plantations ranged from eighteen to twenty-four 

 cents a day, and proportionably less for boys and females. 

 Out of these wages, the laborers have to board them- 

 selves. Now when it is considered that in the largest 

 market on the island, flour costs from sixteen to eigh- 

 teen dollars by the barrel, butter thirty-eight cents a 

 pound, eggs from three to five cents a piece, and hams 

 twenty-five cents a pound ; does not the cry of high 

 wages appear absurd? Was the wolf's complaint of the 

 lamb for muddying the water in the stream below him, 

 more unreasonable ? Are wages lower in any quarter of 

 the civilized world ? Four-fifths of all the grain consumed 

 in Jamaica is grown in the United States, on fields where 

 labor costs more than four times this price, and where 

 every kind of provision, but fruit, is less expensive. The 



