Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-21

or Hebrews, the shipping agents come gen.
erallv from the country whose ships they
represent, the hotel keepers are Frenchmen,
the laundrymen are Chinese. the rousta-
bouts on the docks are generally from Italy
or the Canary Islands, but most of the hard
work, the lifting and carrying, is done by
negro women. The chambermaids and
walters at the hotels and restaurants are
men, the laundries are run by men; they are
the clerks in the shops, and do most If nor
all of the light labor, but on any day one
can see hundreds of women, entirely naked
to the waist and below the knees, carrying
baskets OF coal.tha weigh from 125 to 200
pounds from the bins on the docks to the
bunkers of the steamers.
AN UNPLEASANT RESIDENCE.
The town is by no means pleasant one.
1t consists of a single long street. which
skirts the bay, with retail shops upon one
side and wharves and warehouses upon the
other. From this main thoroughfare run at
right angles a number of lanes and steep
paths up the sides of the hills, whose sum-
mits are ], 500 feet above the sea. The lanes
on either side are lined with houses which
cling to the rocks. The fronts may be three
stories high and the rear show only bit of
an attic window, so steep are the cliffs.
Everything seems to be set upon end. As
one may imagine, the houses are dreadfully
uncomfortable, without any means of proper
ventilation, and steam like furnaces, not
only from the natural caloric in the atmos-
phere, but from the heated rocks which
stand in the sun all day. The beds at night
are like vapor baths, and during the day it
is usually SO hot that the effort of putting
two thoughts together will throw a man
into a perspiration. The whites decay under
these conditions, but the blacks seem to
thrive, and the natural increase of popula-
ton is enormous, while the death rate is
small, for the island is generally healthy.
The better classes of people live upon the
hills, where are some pretty villas, hand
somely fitted up and comfortable, for the
heat is tempered by the breezes that always
blow in from the sea.
An object of interest to the tourist is the
ruins of an old castle which you are assured
was the former residence of the original and
only Bluebeard, whose domestic relations
have excited so much interest for hundreds
of years. 1t was my recollection that the
hero of Perrault's story was an ugly English
baron in the time of Henry ~, but the
good, and may say reliable, historians of
ST. Thomas insist that the tale was founded
upon the eccentricities Of q former Governor
of the Island, in Spanish times, one Mar
quis de Riaz, who, as all know, married
beautiful girl ana gave ner the keys OF the
castle, with permission to open all the
chambers but one.
JUST LIKE A WOMAN.
The curiosity of her sex, according to the
tradition, proved too much for the lady,
who at the first opportunity opened the for
hidden door, and witnessed the fate Of her
matrimonial predecessors, some eight or ten
in number She was wise enough to escape
at once to her friends, and the dreadful old
barbarian was mobbed and murdered.
The foreign consuls, who are very numer-
Gus and represent almost every nation under
the sun, constitute, with the steamship
agents and the officers of the garrison, the
society of the place, who are reinforced at
times by colonies of health seekers. Busi-
ness commences early in the morning and
continues till about IL o'clock, when every
body goes home to breakfast and after that
enjoys a siesta till about in the afternoon,
when the sun sinks below the hills and the
heat is sufferable. When the steamers from
Europe arrive, and meet those from the
Western and Southern ports, as they usually
do twice week, the little town is quite ami
mated for few hours. The seven by nine
newspaper is issued with the latest intelli-