The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-10-21
made out of money" and have come

There is no doubt that certain manu- l factories would do well in Porto Rico, such as paper mill, for instance, an ice-making plant, and others of similar | nature to supply the needs of the is- land. Tere are few good openings for | well-conducted American hotels, res- taurants, barber shops, laundries, tail- bring establishments livery stables hack and express lines; and in the pro- | fessional lines American doctors, den- | lists and photographers will doubtless l soon absorb most business of that na- l ture; while the native lawyers-who 1 like other Spanish Americans are born ] limbs of the law, will continue to mono | polize the legal business. When the | building era begins, as it is bound to do | by net year at farthest, there will be | work for a while for mechanics of all | sorts. Probably in time the agricultur- | al lands will pass into the hands of Americans, their superior methods and | commercial sagacity being bound to ! eventually absorb the holdings of a | race so ill-f1tted to compete with them | as the Porto Ricans. To-day, in spite
 of adverse circumstances, coffee-grow- I ing in this island is about the most | profitable industry in the world. Un- | der ordinarily favorable circumstances | it never fails to pay from thirty to for 1 ty per cent on the investment, years in | and out. Where the bounties of na-
 ture are so lavishly bestowed as in
 Porto Rico there must be many new in- | duStrieS within reach of far-Seeing | Americans, such as chocolate and cocoa
 factories, utilizing the palm-oil nuts, | castor and vanilla beans with which l the island abounds, as well as the spice | and dye-plants; fruit-packi estab- l lishments. raising chickens and eggs 1 with incubators Ca thing yet unheard of | here), and especially breweries In the | last named line there is certainly a
 most excellent opening. The people
 consume vast amount of beer. which
 is all brought from the United States
 and Germany at great expense. The
 fashion here is to serve it with broken
 ice in the glass, which of course rem
 ders it disagreeably flat and tasteless.
 Porto Rico Is not so very hot--not
 circumstance to New York or Washing
 ton in mid-summer-the average daily temperature being eighty degrees; but 1 the fact remains that it is extremely
 trying to foreigners. It stands to rea- l
 rodes in six weeks and where paper is
 in a short time reduced to powder,
 must be hard on the human frame. | While the natives sometimes live to
 good old age, few instances being re-
 corded of persons past one hundred
 years, people from the north are sure
 of having serious time for a year or
 two, and if they survive the acclima-
 ting process are generally cut off long
 before the natural three score years
 and ten.
 Yesterday was talking with a Chi
 cago real estate man whom I met in
 Ponce. The grit of what he told me is
 as follows: q left home with the idea
 that Porto Rico would offer some
 splendid openings for men of small
 means, and came here expressly to seek ] information in that line. And I have been disenchanted, not to say grievous- ly disappointed. You know how it in
 in the United States; that man who
 has only few thousands at command
 is quite lost sight of in this age of
 pools and trusts and combines and
 syndicated department stores, and I
 supposed that here was one of our new
 possessions to which he might come
 and with his limited means begin life | under more hopeful conditions. But I was altogether mistaken. I find that the coffee, sugar and tobacco planta-
 tions are of great extent, and although
 their owners are willing to part with
 them, they want anywhere from fifty
 thousand dollars up to half a million.
 Fruit farming, being new venture, 1 is uncertain and reliable data upon
 which to base estimates are impossible
 to obtain. After Investigating all these l turned my attention to dairying and
 minor industries, but there are unfa- | vorable circumstances surrounding
 each of them, more or less insurmount-
 able; and on the whole I have conclu-
 ded to go home and be contented. It is
 an undoubted fact that nowhere on l Gods green earth does the poor man | stand so good chance as in the United | States"
 As an indication of what is already I going on, it may be stated that there
 are seven bids before the council of
 Ponce for a street railroad franchise
 between that city and the port, a dis
 tance of two and half miles. The bid
 offers ten thousand dollars outright,
 with forfeiture at the end of twenty | years. The plans include every known
 form of motor, and one provides for a | swinging car to be run on a single rail. 1 The postal department has recently
 established stations all over the island,
 and bids for carrying the mails to vari-
 ous points have been called for. It is
 said that a Philadelphian went by the
 last steamer to the United States to
 purchase machinery for an ice-plant, to
 be set up at a town called Mayaguez,
 and rumors are rife of large deals by l American syndicates in Porto Rican to-
 bacco and coffee lands.
 Ponce is the largest city of the is- l land, with a population in normal times | of perhaps thirty-eight times It is a /; rich old town, exceptionally clean for | Spanish and well built. Its i dwelling houses are mostly of wood. | with iron balconies, green jalousies and
 windows without glass, while the pub
 lie buildings are of brick and stone.
 The latter are grouped around palm
 shaded plaza and include a Roman
 Catholic cathedral and an Episcopal | church, besides the usual ''palacio," | theater and casino. There are half
 dozen other churches, of course all 1 Romish, well-kept hospital. public li- l brary and reading-room, too colleges | and a military school. The wide, we'll