Prof. Thompson On Jamaica

Talks of Life and Customs in the Islands

Under English Rule

The Natives Are Doing Well and Are Happy - Fruit Trade the Most Important

Prof. and Mrs. B. M. Thompson returned Saturday evening from Jamaica, where they spent the past six weeks. They returned just in time, for the recent hurricane struck the town where they had been staving the day after they set sail for Boston. The trip, which consumed five days each way, was made on one of the boats of the United Fruit company, which carries on the fruit trade of Jamaica and Central America with the United States. The company owns twenty boats in all, four of which enter the Boston port.

There are a bout 800,000 inhabitants, only 25,000 of them being whites. Most of these are English as the island has been under the control of the British government for the past 250 years. The manners and customs are essentially English. The natives, who are negroes, are about the same as those of the gulf States, having similar political rights but there is no favor shown any one class of people in the courts. Native women work just the game as the men. Little clothing is worn, as is the custom of the people of the tropical regions, and this is kept on until it is worn out.

Besides the whites and natives there are from eight to ten thousand coolies. They are brought in under contract with the English government. Their transportation and so much per day being guaranteed them. As a class they are thrifty and industrious and are employed by the private planters.

The island is not backward educationally as there is a general system of state education throughout the island. In point of membership the Church of England stands first. The other protestant churches are somewhat represented but the Catholics are very few. Quite an extensive work is carried on among the natives by the Salvation Army. The coolies cling to their native religion which is Mohammedan.

The fruit company by creating a demand for bananas, pine apples and cocoanuts has given new life to the island. These are cultivated along the coast as this has the highest temperature. It is usually 90 degrees here. In the interior it is much cooler and here allspice, coffee, sugar and rum are cultivated and exported in large quantities. There are a few horses to aid in the cultivation of the island but donkeys and mules are used to a much greater extent.

The island is governed as an English colony, the governor, the principal judicial and executive officers being appointed by the English government. But the prosperity of the island depends almost entirely upon the trade relations with the United States as the trade with England is not great.

Kingston, which has a population of about 60,000, is the largest city. Porto Rica ranks next, but this was almost completely demolished by the recent hurricane. There are two or three other small cities but the inhabitants are gathered mostly into small villages very similar to those of the Southern States. In Kingston there are some magnificent hotels and here all of the comforts of modern civilization are to be found. A fine system of water works and drainage runs through the city. Ice is manufactured artificially, the plants producing ice and selling it for four dollars per ton. In the villages there are a few one-story buildings which have sheet iron roofs but the dwellings are mostly wooden affairs with thatched roofs of palm and sugar cane.