Connecticut western news., 1913-07-10
PORTO RICO
Rev. Samuel F. Adam, Returned Mis-
 sionary Gives Interesting Talk.
assault.

Rev. Samuel F. Adam, Returned Mis-
 sionary Gives Interesting Talk.
 At Christ Church last Sunday, Rev. Samuel F. Adam, for many years identi- fled with the Episcopal missionary work Tn Porto Rico, gave an interesting talk on the conditions and needs of the people on the island. In part he said:
 The island of Porto Rico is about three. fourths the size of the state of Oonnecti- cut, with larger population, but while Connecticut has a number of large cities, Porto Rico has only two-one, San Juan. of 60, 900 and the other. of possibly 3o,- 900. Besides these there are some five or six with population varying from D. 900 to 20, 900 so the people of the island are much more evenly distributed and a casual visitor would hardly imagine 1t possible that 1t could be so thiokly settled.
 The island is about 100 miles long and thirty miles wide the north and south sides almost parallel, running east and west the ends uneven, especially the eastern. Three-fourths the coast is bordered by a nearly level plain averag- ing about five miles in width. This is very fertile and forms most of the sugar cane land of the island. Inside of this the whole interior of Porto Rico is tumble of mountains three to four thous- and feet high; these as they rise so near to the sea look, though they really are not. twice the height of the Dome" of the Taconic, as seen from this village.
 The bulk of the people of the island are desperately poor there is but an in- significant number of the moderately we'll to do, as we would term them, and these are mostly confined to the cities the merchants. The rich are the planters holding their large plantations, with great sugar mills, called centrals. The small sugar planters have mostly disappeared. During the Spanish oc- cupation the wage of the day laborer was seldom more than 30 cents, but to offset this the simple food-stuffs used were cheap and abundant. It was possible to live easily within even this. Now since we took the island from Spain, common labor is paid on the average 75 cents a day hut as all the most fertile parts have been bought or leased and turned to sugar cane, these poor people suffer eK- ceedingly work as they may they can hardly feed themselves enough to keep strength for their very inefficient labor. Of course they turn to bananas, which will grow almost everywhere, but though this keeps them alive, it hardly does more than this, and while the cane planters have prospered the condition of the poor has been the reverse of im- proved. The dwellers of the plains are very different in character from the mountaineers of the interior. These last are much more white in blood, with straight, dark hair and thin lips. The children are pretty and graceful; ; many of them are rosy checked. If the negro blood predominates on the coast, white, with dash of aboriginal Indian is the characteristic of these mountaineers. Poverty, soant food, immortality rather than immortality rapidly change them to unlovely premature old age. Life is short and conditions are cruel. Tobacco and coffee raising are their chief indus tries, and their lands which used to be held in small "finces" or farms of one to ten acres have been absorbed into larger estates, and the poor but once in dependent jibero (pronounced hibero) are rapidly becoming serfs with all the degradation that condition implies. They work, are paid in goods and credit and are kept in debt to the stores. The little stores in turn are supplied by the larger ones of the cities, and more than nine-tenths of the people work for those who seemingly own them, body and soul. Talk with almost anyone of the wealthier class and you will hear noth- ing but disparagement of either peon as the lowland laborers are called, or of the jibero. Assertion that their condition could be improved. is received with an almost intolerant negative. To suggest that they can be benefited by even primary education brings the reply that reading and writing spells them. A
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 Continued on Page Five)