numbers and of 96 in average attendance, whilst both years compare favourably with 1867 and 1868.

In St. Kitt's the total number of scholars on the books of the Government schools in 1870 was 2,901, and the average attendance, 1,732. The first-mentioned total is divided amongst the ecclesiastical denominations as follows:

Of the Grammar School, the Principal reports that upon the whole he cannot speak hopefully, unless boys can be attracted from the rural districts and from the neighbouring islands by the provision of adequate boarding accommodation, so as to bring the number up to thirty or forty. He mentions that during the year he had received two boys from the rising portion of the coloured class, and he had reason to expect others: to them he considers that the gain will be very great," provided that the staple element of the school should remain, as heretofore, white."

The reports under this head from the other Dependencies do not,, I think, present any salient feature requiring special notice, and I trust that what precedes will suffice to give a fair though very concise view of the actual position of this important feature of their social condition.

The only remaining head which it has occurred to me as desirable to include in the Statistical Chart is the institution of Savings' Banks, and I think it will be regretted that they are not more generally and widely made use of. In British Guiana it will be observed with satisfaction that the several classes of immigrant labourers taken together, although not equalling the Creole depositors in numbers, largely exceed them in the amount of their deposits, constituting indeed nearly sixty per cent. of the whole.

APPENDIX A.

It is a vulgar error, copied and repeated from one book to another, that in the Tropics the luxuriance of the vegetation overpowers the efforts of man. Just the reverse is the case: Nature and the climate are nowhere so favourable to the labourer, and I fearlessly assert that here the "primeval " forest can be converted into rich pasture and meadow land, into cultivated fields, gardens, and orchards, containing every variety of produce, with half

the labour, and what is of more importance, in less than half the time than would be required at home, even though we had clear instead of forest ground to commence upon. It is true that ground once rudely cleared, in the manner of the country, by merely cutting down the wood and burning it as it lies, will, if left to itself, in a single year be covered with a dense scrubby vegetation; but if the ground is cultivated and roughly weeded, the trunks and stumps will have so rotted in two or three years as to render their complete removal an easy matter, and then a fine crop of grass succeeds; and with cattle upon it, no more care is required, as no shrubby vegetation again appears. Then, whatever fruit trees are planted, will reach a large size in five or six years, and many of them give fruit in two or three. Coffee and cacao both produce abundantly, with the minimum of attention; orange and other fruit trees are never done anything to, but if pruned would no doubt yield fruit of a superior quality in greater quantity. Pineapples, melons, and water-melons are planted, and when ripe the fruit is gathered, there being no intermediate process whatever. Indian corn and rice are treated nearly in the same manner. Onions, beans, and many other vegetables thrive luxuriantly. The ground is never turned up, and manure never applied; if both were done, it is probable that the labour would be richly repaid. Cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs may be had to any extent; nobody ever gives them anything to eat, and they always do well. Poultry of all kinds thrive. Molasses may be easily made in any quantity, for cane put into the ground grows and gives no trouble; and I do not see why the domestic process used in the United States for making Maple-sugar should not be applied here.

Now I unhesitatingly affirm that two or three families, containing halfa-dozen working and industrious men and boys, and being able to bring a capital, in goods, of fifty pounds, might in three years find themselves in the possession of all I have mentioned. Supposing them to get used to the mandiocea and Indian-corn bread, they would, with the exception of clothing, have no one necessary or luxury to purchase: they would be abundantly supplied with pork, beef, and mutton; poultry, eggs, butter, milk, and cheese; coffee and cacao; molasses and sugar; delicious fish, turtles and turtle's eggs, and a great variety of game would furnish their table with constant variety, while vegetables would not be wanting, and fruits, both cultivated and wild, in superfluous abundance, and of a quality that none but the wealthy in our land can afford. Orange and lemons, figs and grapes, melons and water-melons, jack-fruits, custard-apples, pine-apples, cashews, alligator-pears, and mamee-apples are some of the commonest, whilst numerous palm and others forest fruits furnish delicious drinks which everybody soon gets very fond of. Both animal and vegetable oils can be procured in abundance for light and working. And then, having provided for the body, what lovely gardens and shady walks might not be made! How easy to construct a natural orchid-house beneath a clump of forest trees, and collect the most beautiful species found in the neighbourhood! What elegant avenues of palms might be formed! What lovely climbers abound to train over arbours or up the walls of the house!-Wallace, “Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro." Lond., 1853, pp. 334-336.

APPENDIX B.

We have commenced in this impression to publish the Reports of the District Medical Officers on the condition of the population in the rural districts, and the details which they give will afford anything but pleasant reading. The publication of the vital statistics of the Colony have already made us painfully aware from time to time of the decreasing numbers of our population, the death-rates having for the last ten years, according to the Registrar-General's returns, exceeded the births by 0.78 per cent., while the decrease shown by the Census returns is still greater. Other communities around us have in the meanwhile been progressing rapidly by natural increase; thus, while in 1805 the population of Antigua was 40,300, and that of Barbadoes 77,130, in 1871 the population of Antigua had fallen to 34,344, while that of Barbadoes had increased to 160,000; and this comparison is the more startling when we find Governor Rawson of Barbadoes stating that the birth-rate of our island has been all the time in excess of the birth-rate of Barbadoes, in proportion of course to the number of the inhabitants in each place. Our climate has been pronounced, and with justice, anything but unfavourable to human life, and its salubrity is attested by numerous European and other residents, who generally declare that they enjoy at least as excellent health here as in any other place they have ever lived. The cause of the decay of our population may therefore be looked for from sources other than the influences of climate, and it is with the object of resolving a question which has become the vital question of the day that our Government has called for special reports from the medical officers in the several districts. To know the source of an evil is the first step towards providing a remedy, and it is in this spirit, with this object, that our government has at length vigorously devoted itself to a task of investigation which we hope will result in a great social revolution.

Dr. Freeland has evidently bestowed much pains on the subject of the inquiry which he was charged to institute, and his evidence points painfully to the vast havoc which is yearly made of infant life by the systematic neglect of those who are its natural guardians. In the more advanced life of the labourer, destitution, arising from various causes, from improvidence, habitual disregard of domestic and moral obligations, as well as from the frequent occurrence of seasons of drought, be believes to be among the direct occasions of premature mortality among the people; but he emphatically draws attention to the wholesale destruction of life at the periods of infancy and early childhood, his conclusion being that neglect at these periods when it does not at once destroy, incapacitates more than anything else the young constitution from passing through the maladies incidental to childhood; and hence the loss at this stage of existence of numbers who otherwise wonld live to become strong pillars in our social fabric. No wonder, then, that we find the Doctor, an estates' proprietor himself, prescribing as the first and chief of his remedies the establishment

of nurseries on the several cultivated estates of the island, to look after labourers' infants, when either indifference induces or necessity compels the mothers to be absent from their offspring. And the Doctor goes further, and recommends that every estate be compelled to furnish one meal a day to such children of the labourers under ten years of age as may be assigned to it after an enumeration of the number of children in the parish. It was gratifying to hear in the Council only last week that Mr. Holborow, of Betty's Hope, had already with success been adopting this plan, and that Mr. Martin, at High Point, had, with an issue however not in accordance with his praiseworthy intentions, been experimenting in this good way. Other gentlemen in the country may, for aught we know to the contrary, have been travelling in this humane direction, and if so they have not only been doing a kindly thing, but have been also wise in their generation. As Mr. Semper reminded honourable gentlemen in the Council on Thursday, property has its responsibilities and duties as well as its claims, and this fundamental truth applies with equal force to the village proprietor and to the estate owner. The obligation which Dr. Freeland would cast upon the estates of relieving to some extent the more helpless class of their labourers, is but instituting a system of poor-rates, though in a form different from that which prevails in England; and on the score of outlay, where the object, as the Doctor well says, is to "save to the country a native peasanty and obviate the necessity of resorting to a doubtful and expensive immigration," no rational objection can be raised. The plan, Mr. Holborow, who has tried it, said, does not cost much, and is repaid to the estates by the more healthy condition of the young people, fitting them indeed for labour which otherwise they could not perform. We have no doubt that many planters will be found willing enough to follow the laudable example both of Mr. Holborow and Mr. Martin, but all have not the same freedom of action, nor perhaps the same pressing inducements. If the project is to be adopted universally as a system, it is obvious that Government must undertake it, and impose a special tax to defray at least part of its cost; and from this tax of course the villages, from which are drawn the bulk of the agricultural population, could not in fairness or good policy be exempted.

Not the least interesting feature of the report which we have been noticing is a number of questions addressed to female labourers, residing either on estates or in the villages, and the answers given disclose a state of demoralisation among the people which helps to account for much of the poverty and infantile suffering brought to light, and will disappoint perhaps many people who have been looking for better results from the teachings and example of schoolmasters and the ministrations of the clergy. Forty-three child-bearing women were examined, some married and some not, and to these were born 295 children, of whom 124 only had lived, while Dr. Freeland, who has to a considerable extent forestalled the labours of the commission which his Excellency the Administrator has appointed to inquire into the condition of our peasantry, concludes his exhaustive report by remarking that he had collected" nearly sixty similar cases to the above, all more or less proving destitution, poverty, and neglect, and a total disregard and indifference to the consequences of concubinage. Poverty is not, however,

peculiar to any particular state; let us therefore postpone preaching, and at once feed the dying children of our labourers."-From the “ Antigua Observer," December 14th, 1872.

APPENDIX C.

We are enabled in this issue to lay before our readers outside the Colony an approximate account current of the transactions of the sugar estates during 1871, which will give them some idea of the extent of the cultivation, and of the large sums of money kept in constant circulation throughout the country. The account is made out by an eminent statistician long connected with sugar cultivation, who has based his calculations on the information of their workings, given by 61 estates to the "British Guiana Directory" for last year. Of this number 37 were vacuum-pan' estates, having 23,661 acres in cane cultivation, of which they reaped 20,955 acres (82 per cent. of the whole) to make 37,151 hhds. of sugar and a quantity equal to 13,651 puncheons of rum, being an average yield of 1:77 sugar and 57 gallons of rum to the acre. The remaining 24 were common process estates, having 10,634 acres in canes, of which 8,785 (82 per cent) were reaped, giving a return of 15,140 hhds. of sugar and 5,766 puncheons of rum, the average per acre being 1·72 hhds. of sugar and 65 gallons of rum. Of the 70 estates that did not publish their workings, 38 were vacuum-pan which made 38,592 hhds., and 32 were common process, which made 15,159 hhds; making the grand total of last year's crop 75,743 hhds. vacuum-pan sugar, and 30,299 hhds. common process sugar, which sums united (106,042) agree, after allowing the quantity necessary for home consumption, with the return of the Custom-House of the sugar exported for the year ending December, 1871. Following up the information gained from the published result of the working of one portion of the crop, and assuming that the other portion was made from a similar acreage, we have a total cultivation of 69,520 acres, of which 42,722 acres were cut to make 75,743 hhds. vacuum-pan sugar and 27,831 puns. rum; and 17,580 acres were cut to make 30,299 hhds. common process sugar and 11,639 puncheons rum; the total being 60,302 acres of canes, or 86 per cent of the entire cultivation, cut to give 106,042 hhds. of sugar and a quantity of rum equal to 39,370 puncheons. This return from the fine cane lands of British Guiana cannot be considered favourable; certainly it is not a heavy crop, and it is hard to reconcile the figures with the return of three and four hhds. per acre we have heard some people brag of.

The approximate value of the above produce is as follows, say :75,743 hhds. V.P. of which 10 per cent is 2nds. at ...$106 $ 8,028,758 0 30,299 hhds. C.P. at 39,370 puns. rum at

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

85 2,575,415 0 50 1,968,500 0

$12,572,673 0