May 2 , 1892.1 
rHf TROPICAL ACRlCULTUftldT, 
847 
covered ouotber reason be is jealous. While women 
like Burmese women, find John Chinaman very kind 
and good to them. Many a trampled hnllied wretch 
finds a haven of rest among Chioamen. Missionaries 
jump to the coDoluaion that a white woman married 
to or kept by a Chinaman is lost and abandoned. 
I say no. They are happier with the thrifty, kind, 
muscular, happy Chinaman than with the drunken, 
brutal, heating bully of a while man. The terrible 
pictures of while women in Chinese “ hells" is all 
“ gammon ’’ The white man's “ AeU" is a far mote 
terrible reality for women of that class. Little Burke 
Street is disgraced more by the larrikin than by the 
Chinaman. A poor girl bnllied by lbs larrikin’s flies 
fur shelter to the Chinese and is well treated. The 
half-caste Chinaman is a bad bargain, inheriting the 
evil propensitici of both parents. 
Abeudonenuib. 
fire risk on CEYLON TEA ESTATES. 
We have received the following correspondence: — 
Ceylon Association in London, 4, Mincing Lane, 
Loudon, K. C., 
March 9tb, 1892. 
A. B. Bagnold, Esq., Secretary, Fire Offici ■ Committee. 
Sir,— This As-iociation, as representing the Ceylon 
lea planters’ interests, desires to bring to your notice 
the exocBsivaly high tariff charged by fire insurance 
companies on Ceylon tea factories, leaf withering 
sheds, bungalows, and other estate buildings. These 
rates vary from 78 (id per cent, to 40s per oi-nt. This 
tariff was agreerl to by the various fire insurance agents 
at a meeting hold in Colombo on Aug. 30th, 1889. 
From figures famished by some of the leading tea 
companies, representing forty-seven factories (which 
may be taken as sufficient data for the whole of the 
factories insured), we find that the maximnm policy 
for any estate amoucts to £5,000 nnd the minimum 
£160. Thioe forty-seven estatoa pay on policies 
amounting to £88,629 the sum of £795 net for pre- 
miums, or 17a lOd per oeut. There are some 350 tea 
factories in Coylon, the valne of which, at £1,900 
per estate, amounts to £666,000, giving, at 178 lOd, 
say £6,000 per annum in premiums. These premiums 
would therefore allow a liberal margin for ebarges 
and profit if two factories were bnrnt down per an- 
uum. With regard to the risk of fires we have no 
exact fignres, but wo believe £5,000 would more than 
cover the losses suffered by lire insurauca companies 
during the past ten years. 
The assuoiatiou is uf opinion that these high 
rates have been charged beoause the real risks are as 
imperfectly understood by Eogiish fire insurance com- 
panies as Ceylon life risks were until recently by 
life offices. 
The business hss not probably been suffioiently 
large when divided among many offices to warrant 
the expense of sending a (qualified supervisor to Ceylon 
*0 study factory risks, and factory proprietors feel 
t^t the tariff has been arbitrarily fixed so exoea- 
^■Eely high on an sssamed heavy risk which does not 
<xist, and the real value of which has probably never 
been calculated. 
This assQcistioD trusts that the various fire cam- 
companies will, on oousiduratioD, be able to very 
materially reduce their tariff so as to be more in 
conformity with the rates paid oo the same class 
of buildings in England, as wo are assured that 
many of the larger tea companies and factory 
proprietors are seriously considering the desira- 
bility of matnally protecting themselves againts fire 
risks rather than oontinue to pay what they consider 
the unwarrantable high rates now charged.— I am, 
sir, yonrs faithfnlly, 
(Signed) Wat. Mabtin Lbake, Secretary. 
(Beplv.) 
Fire OfiSccJ Committee (Foreign), 
63, Watling Street, and 11, Queen Street, 
London, March 11, 1892. 
. Wm. Martin Leake, Esq., Secretary, Ceylon Atso- 
motion in London 
. Lear Sir,— Xu replj to your letter cf the 9th inst,, 
to wUith yoQ oall atteutioa to wiikti you coatidei tho 
high rates charged for tea factories, &c,, in Ceylon. 
I beg to inform you that the matter is not one with 
which it falls within onr province to deal, as the 
tariff to which you refer has not been settled through 
this Committee. — Yours faithfnlly, 
(Signed) Atxx. B. Baonold, Secretary, 
—IJ. and C. Mail, March.:2Sth. 
RUBBER GATHERING ON THE AMAZON. 
At the instigation of the editor of the India RMer 
World, tbe Ueparlment of State, through the cansalar 
offices, has been engaged in making some extended re- 
searcbes into the rubber indnstry of tbe world. These 
reports are valuable and interesting, and great praise is 
dno Mr. Hawthorne Hill, tbe editor of onr ooolempo- 
rary, for tbe effort put forth to seoure these reports, by 
wbiob " the extent of rubber forests of tbe world bat 
been demonstrated to be so extensive that any possibi- 
lity of cornering the crude rubber anpply is impractic- 
able ; that theouoo-tbreatened extinction of tbe robber 
forests is apt now to be cheeked by Governmental pre- 
cnations against wasteful methods of gatbeiing rnbber, 
and that now sources of gntta percha supplies have 
been discovered which will prevent a scarcity of this 
cummodity, and thus encourage Iho building of ocean 
cables. I ram these reports wo quote the following 
interesting description of 
KOBBEB-OATHEIIINO IN THE AMAZON VALLBT. 
" The rubber-gatherer roils out of his hammock as 
soon as it is light in the morning, takes his gnlp of rum 
and bis calabash of coffee, starts out to visit hia rnbber 
trees. He wears a short pair of breeches, and some- 
times a shirt. He goes barefoot, for he must wade 
thongh the swamp mud and oose of tbe tide up to his 
knees, and often up to bis waist in water. He takes a 
basket full of earthenware gill caps, a hunk of adhesive 
clay and a little narrow-bladed hatchet. 
“ If he adopts the most approved method of tapping 
tbe trees, he reaches as high as be can with bis battel, 
making an incision in the bark, but not reaching 
through to the wood. The milk immediately begins to 
issue in rapid drops or little streams. With a spat of 
the adhesive clay he immediately fastens one of his 
little gill clay cups just belew tbe bleeding gssb, and 
molds the clay so as to make all the rubber milk flow 
into the cup. Three such gashes, at equal distances 
around the tree, and at an equal height, is the rule. The 
next day he will make three more gashes in the same 
way, just a little below these, three, and so oontinue, 
Qutil by tbe end of tbe season be will have reached the 
level of the grenod. Each ol bis 100 or 160 trees is 
treated in the same way, and be returns home after 
having travelled from three to five inileB,|barefool and 
almost naked, through thorny thicket and malaria- 
steaming swamp. 
" When he reaches his hat again he takes another 
gulp from tbe domijobo, snatches a breakfast of salt 
fish and mandiooa meal, wbiob are often moldy from 
the reeking uamp of the ewamp, and then starts out 
again with his calabash bnoketa to gather the milk 
which by this time has ceased to flow. His gill oops 
ate tull, or nearly so, and when he reaches home he has 
milk enough to make font kiloaof rubber, on an average. 
The next task is the oosgnlation of this milk. For this 
pntpose he lias a jng-sbaped furnace, made of oarlheo- 
wsre, called a boiao, open at bottom and top, and with a 
small aperture at the side to admit the ait for the com- 
bastion. In this piece of furniture he builds a fire, or 
rather a smudge, with tbe nnls of the inaja or uruery 
palm. The dense black smoke which rolls from the 
open top of the boiao is the reagent which aoagulatea 
the milk. For this purpose the rubber gatherer has a 
oitoulac-bladed paildle, like the paddle of a oanoe 
wbiob be ameacs over with clay so that the rubber will 
not adhere to it. This is snspended by means of a cord 
from the limb of a tree just above the smudge The 
milk IB poured over the blade of the paddle, which ii 
then turned over and round about in the smoke and in 
a few moments the film of rubber is coagulated Tl» 
same prooess is repeated of wetting with milk and 
smoking the growing lump until it reaches the weiE^ 
of from five to twenty-ttve kilos or mote. TheV f il 
slipped off from ibe paddle n • ig pajjgj 
