e number of them are what the British law terms
_apprentices_, and are still bound in unremunerated servitude, though
some of them for thrice seven years have been adepts in their trades,
and not a few are earning their masters twenty or thirty dollars each
month, clear of all expenses. Some of these _apprentices_ are
hoary-headed and wrinkle-browned men, with their children, and
grand-children, apprentices also, around them, and who, after having
used the plane and the chisel for half a century, with faithfulness for
_others_, are now spending the few hours and the failing strength of old
again in _preparing_ to use the plane and the chisel for _themselves_.
The work on which they were engaged evinced no lack of mechanical skill
and ingenuity, but on the contrary we were shown some of the most
elegant specimens of mechanical skill, which we ever saw. The rich woods
of the West Indies were put into almost every form and combination which
taste could designate or luxury desire.

The owners of these establishments informed us that their business had
much _increased within the last two years_, and was still extending.
Neither of them had any fears for the results of complete emancipation,
but both were laying their plans for the future as broadly and
confidently as ever.

In our walk we accidentally met a colored man, whom we had heard
mentioned on several occasions as a superior architect. From the
conversation we had with him, then and subsequently, he appeared to
possess a fine mechanical genius, and to have made acquirements which
would be honorable in any man, but which were truly admirable in one who
had been shut up all his life by the disabilities which in Jamaica have,
until recently, attached to color. He superintended the erection of the
Wesleyan chapel in Kingston, the largest building of the kind in the
island, and esteemed by many as the most elegant. The plan was his own,
and the work was executed under his own eye. This man is using his means
and influence to encourage the study of his favorite art, and of the
arts and sciences generally, among those of his own hue.

One of the largest bookstores in the island is owned by two colored men.
(Messrs. Jordon and Osborne, already referred to.) Connected with it is
an extensive printing-office, from which a newspaper is issued twice a
week. Another paper, under the control of colored men, is published at
Spanishtown. These are the two principal liberal presses