The Sun.
London, England, 1846-07-10 00:00:00

ST. LUCIA.

(From the St. Lucia Independent Press, June 4.)
At length the weather has become such as to satisfy
even the planters. The lately costive firmament is dis-
charging, freely, showers of water and electricity. In a
word the wet season has fairly set in. But let it not be
imagined by those abroad that the effects of the recent
protracted drought are to be thus easily repaired. Such
damage has been done both to this year's crop, and to
that of next year, as the present rains, however season-
able, cannot remedy.
Favourable to agriculture, the weather is not the most
wholesome for individuals. Hooping•cough has not en-
tirely disappeared, and dysentery is prevalent. Those
unexplained curses, the mosquitoes and sand-flies, afflict
the inhabitants, especially such as occupy low-tene-
ments, surrounded with shrubbery and stagnant wa-
ter, and cut off from the free action of the
wind. Let London cockneys complain of bugs and
fleas. Happy will they be if swarms of our inter-
tropical insects never assault their domestic c ,mforts.
You sit on a cane-bottom chair. You are, literally
cupped in consequence. In a warm climate, the
veins of your ample forehead swell. In an instant the
winged and buzzing tormentors settle on the choice spots
with the skill of practised anatomists. It is said that
the old system of bleeding for all disorders has been ex-
ploded. Pray blow up our sand-flies and mosquitoes,
and a statue shall attest your merit to a liberated pos •
terity.
Money has seldom been more scarce than it now is.
The peasantry, having none, cannot buy goods, and,
consequently, the shopkeepers cannot make remittances.
Wages have fallen at least 33 per cent. The combined
court, however, which is irresponsible to the tax-
payers, has resolved to re• impose, for another year,
those exorbitant taxes on the common necessaries of
life, the effect of which is that wages, however de-
scribed as high, are only high nominally. This body
has not yet brought its most unpatriotic labours to a ter-
mination. _ _

There have arrived 260 coolies by the Britannia.
and 139 by the Raymond ; and, to-day, 2',il by the
Sir Robert Peel. Numbers of those people are to
be seen wandering on the streets and highways,
scantily clad and filthy. About a daring riot among
a portion of them on the west coast of Demerara
we shall say nothing until after the termination of
pending law proceedings. The coolies, when industrious,
are clean workers, but weak. For the heavy labour in-
cidental to the rainy season they are not by any means
fitted. But were they first-rate shovel men, which they
are not, they would still be a bad bargain under the con-
dition of re-transportation, at the public charge, at the
end of fire years. Mr. Secretary Gladstone wculd con-
fer a solid benefit on the country, if he were to inter-
dict coolie immigration altogether, and thus rescue the
colonists from the misgovernment of their rulers ere it is
too late to interpose with advantage. Africans and Ma-
deirans, so much more cheap of introduction, excel the
coolies incomparably in every qualification which our
plantation tasks require.
Of the projected railway between Georgetown and
Mahaica, a neat sketch is in the colony, drawn by the
talented engineer, Catberwood. The line, some 21
miles long, is divided into three portions, each quite
straight, and all united together at angles so open as to
form nearly a straight line throughout. Towards the
City, the buildings of the plantations are generally
to seaward of the line, towards Mahaica, mostly to
landward of it. The City terminus is at the northern
end of the city, that is, at the river's mouth ; from
which, however, a branch is to run up a main street to
the market and the public buildings. This arrangement
seems to be unexceptionable.
A long way above the spot at which the line strikes
the little river Mahaica, an expensive bridge has just
been constructed, the cost of which is to be defrayed by
a loan, redeemable out of the tolls. As soon as the rail-
way is completed, this bridge, as a matter of course,
will be deserted and unproductive. Notwithstanding
this, the public authorities are contracting for other
bridges on other small rivers, nearer Berbice, quiteir-
respectively of what stations the railway company may
decide on. Thus we shall have handsome and costly
erections, four at least in number, which neither man
nor brute will ever use.