The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1898-12-15
wo well-posted travelling companions

Two Well-pOsted travelling companions
am able to give you the following reli
able information. The property tax on
farm lands in Jamaica, cultivated for
| sugar, coffee, grain, ETC., is six cents the
acre; for inferior land, two cents. Mer-
chants pay tax of sixty dollars a year:
shopkeepers, $3.50; and newspaper pro-
prietors only $3.50 per annum Five
daily newspapers are published in Kings
ton, besides three weeklies, two semi
weeklies, seven monthlies, three fortnight
lies and quarterly review. Verify, this
British province is not lacking in ''hght
literature''
Hotels pay license fee of 800 wear
in Kingston, and $50 elsewhere in the
island. Some of the stamp duties are
very heavy. Banking corporations issuing
notes, pay 1925. 90 per annum. A barrister
pays So on his admission; and a solicitor
$500 for his certificate. Postage on letters
going from place to place in the island is
four cents each half ounce, if prepaid
newspapers one cent; double rate if not
prepaid. Telegsaphy is cheap in Jamaica
compared to ooher places in the West
indies. A cabegram from Kingston to
New York costs a dollar and a half each
word, address included. The constabul
airy consists of seven hundred men. 1870 of
whom are stationed in Kingston. The
legal qualifications of a constable are that
he must be able to read and write. and
must measure not less than thiry-two
inches around the chest and five feet six
inches in height. Then he receives the
muniticent salary of eighty-fve cents
day. There is reserve police, to be used
when called upon. OF these, the head
men-one in every seven-are paid 60
dollars year, and 81 cents day add
tlonal when actually on duty
Labor of all kinds is cheap in Jamaica.
The ordinary wages of carpenters and
brick layers is 10 cents day, and their
helpers get 80 cents each. A teamster.
with his cart and two mules, or three
oxen, (Which he feeds nmself), receives
about dollar and half for twelve
hours toll. Food costs about the same as
in New York, except that here the best
beet is only twelve cents a pound. Strange
to say sailed beef is twice as high, and
salt pork from Is to 20 cents the pound.
Clothing is cheap, such as it is. Ready
made, hand-sewed shoes cost dollar the
pair; and a mans felt hat so cents
Good English tweeds and other cloths
bring much less here than the usual price
for the same in London.
| The annual product of rum, though
diminished in recent years, still reaches the
respectable figures, (if anything pertain
ing to rum can be called respectfully, of
two million FIVE hundred thousand gallons
year. To offset that, there are fifteen
| lodges of Good Templars on the island
/ and work enough they find to do Free
| Masonry hourshes in Jamaica. There
are three Grand Lodges-the Provincial
! Grand Mark Masters Lodge of England
the Provincial Grand Lodge of Scotland
and the District Grand Lodge of Eastern
Jamaica. Odd Fellowship has also been
! introduced, with a feeble off shoot of the
! Daughters of Rebekah. There are Knights
| OF Pythias, too, and Knights of Malta.
! besides several other secret organizations
whose mysteries | am not expected to
! disclose-if ] know them.
! And now our last hour in Jamaica has
come. The steamer which is to carry us
! back to Cuba sails at sunset across the
western Ocean" calling first at Pro
| greso Yucatan, and then rounding Cape
I San Antonio to Havana
FANNIE Brigham WARD