Farming here is called pen-keeping, and in some districts there are very fine grazing lands. In fact, it seems to me that no more productive ground exists under Heaven. If the people had more energy as well as more capital, it ought to be a little Paradise, barring the ticks. A relative of mine described the state of Jamaica very aptly when he said, “The indifference of the blacks was only equalled by the apathy of the Europeans.”
CHAPTER VIII
SAVINGS BANKS—KESWICK VIEWS—SPANISH TOWN
I have been interrupted in my writing this morning by listening to a very entertaining conversation going on between two maid-servants, both pure negresses, as to whether pink or blue chiffon would look best in their Sunday hats. The latest fashion is to see smartly-dressed black ladies with well-powdered necks and faces, wearing huge knots of coloured ribbon on the left breast. Everything they can save goes to buy finery. Out of four shillings a week, three are spent on dress, the fourth feeds them. Much is done to induce them to put spare pence into savings banks, which were established as early as 1837, depositors receiving 4½ per cent.; but some years after, a panic ensued, when the secretary of a branch bank committed forgery, and was sentenced to fourteen years’ penal servitude.
In 1870 a Government savings bank supplanted the former; the interest depositors get now is only 2½ per cent. The married negress lawfully regards her deposits as her own special property. That this is a praiseworthy as well as useful institution is proved by the fact that there were on the 31st of March 1900 32,860 depositors, including charities, societies, clubs and public functionaries investing in their official capacities. To assist people to deposit smaller sums, there are now penny banks established in different parts of the island by influential persons and clergymen. In 1897 there were forty-three of these with 11,703 depositors. The currency is the same as in England, but there are nickel pennies in circulation and paper notes for sovereigns. I studiously avoid taking the latter, and insist on English gold: the dirty things are detestable. Yesterday I went into a store at Mandeville to buy some trifle, and I saw two black damsels trying the effect of transparent muslin over their dusky arms; that with the biggest pattern was chosen, it was “preetty fe trew,” they thought.
I am indebted to a Kingston clergyman for many amusing negro stories; having lived here over thirty years he has quite a fine collection. This is one. A negro stood chatting with the blacksmith in his shop. After a while he broke out, “Hi, me smell fire burn!” With a frightful exclamation he gave a jump, and found he had been standing on a piece of iron just out of the fire, but it had taken some time for the heat to penetrate the hoof!
A coloured man wrote thus to a clergyman:—
“Dear Minister,—My mother is dead, and expects to be buried this afternoon at four o’clock. Please come and administer over her remains.”
