here a month.'

Captain C---- undertook that I should go up myself in a day or two. He
promised to write and make arrangements. Meanwhile we went on to
Kingston. It was not beautiful. There was Rodney's statue. Rodney is
venerated in Jamaica, as he ought to be; but for him it would have been
a Spanish colony again. But there is nothing grand about the buildings,
nothing even handsome, nothing even specially characteristic of England
or the English mind. They were once perhaps business-like, and business
having slackened they are now dingy. Shops, houses, wharves, want
brightness and colour. We called at the office of the Colonial
Secretary, the central point of the administration. It was an old
mansion, plain, unambitious, sufficient perhaps for its purpose, but
lifeless and dark. If it represented economy there would be no
objection. The public debt has doubled since Jamaica became a Crown
colony. In 1876 it was half a million. It is now more than a million and
a half. The explanation is the extension of the railway system, and
there has been no culpable extravagance. I do not suppose that the
re-establishment of a constitution would mend matters. Democracies are
always extravagant. The majority, who have little property or none,
regulate the expenditure. They lay the taxes on the minority, who have
to find the money, and have no interest in sparing them.

Ireland when it was governed by the landowners, Jamaica in the days of
slavery, were administered at a cost which seems now incredibly small.
The authority of the landowners and of the planters was undisputed. They
were feared and obeyed, and magistrates unpaid and local constables
sufficed to maintain tolerable order. Their authority is gone. Their
functions are transferred to the police, and every service has to be
paid for. There may be fewer serious crimes, but the subordination is
immeasurably less, the expense of administration is immeasurably
greater. I declined to be taken over sugar mills, or to be shown the
latest improvements. I was too ignorant to understand in what the
improvements consisted, and could take them upon trust. The public
bakery was more interesting. In tropical climates a hot oven in a small
house makes an inconvenient addition to the temperature. The bread for
Kingston, and for many miles around it, is manufactured at night by a
single company and is distributed in carts in the morning. We saw the
museum and public library. There were the