s to Emancipation. 1852.

Sugar 300,000,000 lbs. -- 620,000,000 lbs.
Molasses 125,000,000 " -- 220,000,000 "
Leaf Tobacco 6,000,000 " -- 10,000,000 "
Coffee 30,000,000 " -- 19,000,000 "

The sugar manufactories during that time had also increased from eight
hundred to upwards of sixteen hundred. Can any one calmly compare this
marvellous progression of Cuba with the equally astounding retrogression
of our Antilles, and fail to come to the irresistible conclusion that
the prosperity of the one is intimately connected with the distress of
the other.

While stating the annual produce of tobacco, I should observe that
upwards of 180,000,000 of cigars, and nearly 2,000,000 boxes of
cigarettes, were exported in 1852, independent of the tobacco-leaf
before mentioned. Professor J.F.W. Johnston, in that curious and able
work entitled _Chemistry of Common Life_, styles tobacco "the first
subject in the vegetable kingdom in the power of its service to
man,"--some of my lady friends, I fear, will not approve of this
opinion,--and he further asserts that 4,500,000,000 lbs. thereof are
annually dispersed throughout the earth, which, at twopence the pound,
would realize the enormous sum of 37,000,000l.

If smoking may be called the popular enjoyment of the island, billiards
and dominoes may be called the popular games, and the lottery the
popular excitement. There are generally fifteen ordinary lotteries, and
two extraordinary, every year. The ordinary consist of 32,000l. paid,
and 24,000l. thereof as prizes. There are 238 prizes, the highest
being 600l., and the lowest 40l. The extraordinary consist of
54,400l. paid, of which 40,800l. are drawn as prizes. There are 206
prizes, the highest of which is 20,000l., and the lowest 40l.; from
which it will appear, according to Cocker, that the sums drawn annually
as prizes are very nearly 150,000l. less than the sums paid. Pretty
pickings for Government! As may naturally be supposed, the excitement
produced by this constitutional gambling--which has its nearest
counterpart in our own Stock Exchange--is quite intense; and as the time
for drawing approaches, people may be seen in all the _cafes_ and public
places, hawking and auctioning the billets at premium, like so many
Barnums with Jenny Lind tickets. One curious feature in the lotteries
here is the interest the niggers take in them. To understand thi