Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-01-11
WOMEN OF JAMAICA
NEW YORKER SAYS THEY ARE
LAZY AND INsINcERE.
A Century Behind the Times-Infu-
ence Of Tradition-Gossip
and Scandal.

| From the New York Tribune
! Down i'm old jamaica women do not
count for very much,'' says a New York
woman who has just returned after a
| years residence in Jamaica. ''rhe men
| have what little recreation there is to be
| had, but it never occurs to them that their
wives or sisters would enjoy anything be-
| sides neighborly gossip, and there is alb
solutely no provision for the amusement or
| recreation Of mere females. Men seem to
| tolerate their wives, and one never sees a
couple out driving together on any sort
of a pleasure excursion.
tradition and custom exert very strong
influence socially, and ideas that were COM
mon fifty or one hundred years ago still
prevail in Jamaica. Gossip and scandal
being the only form of amusement these are
made the most of, and an American woman
finds 1t exceedingly startling and annoying
to find herself engaged the next day after
having stopped a moment in the parade to
exchange greetings with native man she
happens to have sill h acquaintance Wi h.
But such is the prejudice one cannot pass
| the simplest civilities with a person of the
opposite sex without the scandalmongers
taking 1t up and making an engagement
out of 1t.
The domestic appointments, too, are in
most establishments about century be-
hind the times. Everything is done In the
most laborious way, and any innovation or
labor saving device seems to be looked on
with suspicion or diSfavor. The cooking
is all done in outside building and the
food Is carried into the house. In years
stay l only saw one cooking stove; the
usual arrangement for cooking Is a brick
erection about four feet high with an open
wood fire on top. A couple of iron bars go
across, and the pots and pans are set right
ia harn fC IN no 10
big brick oven is heated. A great deal of
expensive imported food is used, such as
cured fish, butter in tins, enormous quaint
ties of condensed milk, ham and bacon and
jams, jellies and marmalade. Bread is very
dear and very poor. All the -four Is i'm
ported from the United States under heavy
duty and freight charges, and the bakers
take very little pains in making bread; it
is always the graham or French bread. The
native beef IS excellent, but they do not I'M
derstand cutting 1t. and one pays the same
price. about sixpence. for The least desirable
partsas for the choicest. The cook generally
a middle-a ged black woman cooks only the
meat and vegetables. Pastry or desserts
are not in her line at all, and unless the
IaHdlady exerts herself to make a pudding
or pie the boarders have to dispense with
dessert.
Creoles Not Pretty.
''The creole women are not at all pretty,
but many of them have graceful and viva
ally fine singing voices among them. They
really sing surprisingly well. considering
that they have absolutely vocal in
struction. There are no free public schools
such as we have. and children are not
obliged to go to school. Any young woman
who thinks she knows enough may become
teacher or open little school at her
home, and she may teach subjects that she
has never been instructed in herself, but
has merely picked up by reading. A very
few of the larger schools have head mas
tiers or mistresses from England, who are
trained teachers. but their assistants and
all of the teachers in the smaller schools
are indifferently qualified native girls and
boys Poor people cannot afford to give
their children even such rudimentary school
ing as the island has. In the old days of
wealth and lavish living people sent their
children to England to scnool, but very few
cal afford to do that now.
Many of the houses bespeak the wealth
of two generations ago, with their solid
mahogany doors and staircases of mas
sive stone construction. When the people
had plenty of money they did not do any
good with it, their only care apparently
having been to squander it, and now their
children and grandchildren are suffering the
pinch of poverty. The girls were brought
up in absolute idleness waited upon by an
army of servants. and a little simple en-
broidery was the only form of toll that
ever occupied their dainty fingers. To this
day Jamaica women look upon work as
about the lowest form of degradation, and
they will resort to the most ludicrous and
despicable expedients to get out of doing
bit of work. One will meet large families
with half a dozen grown-up girls doing
nothing and father toiling on a small
salary to support them all in idleness.
They are very d.essy in Their peculiar
way. Everything is trimmed to death with
tucks, insertion, edging, ribbon and every
form of Establishment they can contrive,
and they have no conception of the smart
ness of simplicity. They do not make any
distinction as to when to wear their finery,
and they will turn out for picnic or agri
cultural show loaded with as much jewelry
and fine clothing as they would wear at a
dinner party.
They Starch Stockings.
Shortly after my arrival had to remon-
strate against the way in which my clothes
were Numbered. In the first place, they
were being rapidly torn to tatters, which.
upon inquiry 1 found was rocks down by
the canal. Then everything was due to the
vigorous pounding they received on. the
starched-like buckram; handkerchefs,
dervests, white stockings all cracked with
cassava starch l did not propose either to
replace my entire wardrobe every few
weeks or to be tortured with starch,
promptly made up my mind to do some
of my own washing. When 1 called for the
washboard they brought me a bit of fence
rail- and no one knew what a washboard
was. l was in the second largest town in
the island, but was unable to get such
simple article in the stores, SO / sent to
New York for one and after that had my
handkerchief and hosiery done up without
starch.
1.-The most annoying part of 1t is that
they cannot by any inducement be prevail
ed upon to omit the starch from single
article and IL is the same in the matter OF
food When the eternal beefsteaks and
chops, friend in oil, became uncomfortable to
my long-suffering stomach, neither love nor
money nor even practical cooking demon
stration, could make it clear to my landlady
variety and omit some of the OIL They
have always done these things so in ia
maica, and they always will, no matter
how many visitors they drive home dys-
peptic.
Apart from the little everyday annoy
ances the most serious faults of the Creoles
are laziness and insincerity 1t would really
seem that most of those women would