44
BARBADOS.
leaning familiarly over the rails in the hall of the assembly. These are their virtues; a few failings they have, such as the habit of not returning anything left in their house, an appetency after the contents of a stranger's coat pocket, and a somewhat too profuse employment of the imprecatory part of the Barbadian dialect. But seriously it is scarcely consistent with the dignity of the most ancient, most loyal, and most windward colony in the west Indies to join their House of Lords, St. Stephen's, Westminster Hall, Newgate, and Marshalsea all in one; recte dividere is a great matter in building houses as in arguing cases, and it might be well to consider how far familiarity, even with personages of such high character, may not breed something like contempt. If I sit down to dinner with a professed scoundrel, he absorbs a portion of my good character, and I receive a like portion of his bad one, till an equilibrium have taken place, we both rise, in the opinion of bystanders, a couple of scoundrels together. In truth, this jail, like every other in the West Indies, except those in Port of Spain and Kingstown, is infamous. It would not cost 200l. a year to reform it. Some sort of classification should be enforced, such at least as of debtors, felons, and women; no intercourse between several divisions, or between any of them and the town, should upon any account be allowed; a very deserving young clergy-