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THE
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Pretty it was sure to be. Windows and doors, galleries and passages, would be all open. The gardens would be lighted up, and the guests could spread as they pleased. Brilliant it all was; more brilliant than you would see in our larger colonies. A ball in Sydney or Melbourne is like a ball in the north of England or in New York. There are the young men in black coats, and there are brightly dressed young ladies for them to dance with. The chape足 rons sit along the walls; the elderly gentlemen withdraw to the card room. Here all was different. The black coats in the ball at Jamaica were on the backs of old or middleaged men, and, except Government officials, there was hardly a young man present in civilian dress. The rooms glittered with scarlet and white and blue and gold lace. The offi足 cers were there from the garrison and the fleet; but of men of business, of professional men, merchants, planters, lawyers &c. there were only those who had grown up to middle age in the island, whose fortunes, bad or good, were bound up with it. When these were gone, it seemed as if there would be no one to succeed them. The coveted heirs of great estates were no longer to be found for mothers to angle after. The trades and professions in Kingston had ceased to offer the prospect of an income to younger brothers who had to make their own way. For 250 years generations of Englishmen had followed one upon another, but we seemed to have come to the last. Of gentlemen unconnected with the public service, under thirty-five or forty, there were few to be seen; they were seeking their fortunes elsewhere. The English interest in Jamaica is still a considerable thing. The English flag flies over Government House, and no one so far wishes to remove it. But the British population is scanty and refuses to grow. Ships and regiments come and go, and officers and State employes make what appears to be a brilliant society. But it is in appearance only. The station is no longer a