Antigua and the Antiguans. Volume 1

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MICO CHARITY.

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tion commenced, which I left entirely to themselves, wishing to see their own mode of tuition. The room, or rather rooms, were hung round with various pictorial embellishments, consisting of some very beautiful lithographed designs, representing the most interesting and affecting scenes in the Old and New Testament—birds and animals, fruits and flowers, steam apparatuses, machinery of all descriptions, modes of every branch of agriculture, and some excellent maps. A stand was placed in the middle of the apartment, and a boy of about twelve or thirteen took his station by the side of it, with the " wand of office" in his hand. It was now announced by the master—" Those boys who wish to ask questions, please hold up their hands," when immediately about eight or ten, of the same age as the one stationed in the middle of the room, replied by the motion required, while an air of animation sprang to their eyes, and lightened the dusky hue of their complexions. The first question was proposed by a boy, black as the late member of parliament's celebrated blacking, but whose scanty habiliments bore many a mark from the finger of time, and many a stain upon their once fair colour. " Who was Hannibal?" Answer, from the boy near the stand—" A Carthaginian general, who defeated the Romans in two engagements." It was now his turn to propound—" How is the true situation of any place upon the globe shewn?" Answer, from an intelligent-looking little mongrel boy, who was in such haste to reply, that it called for the aid of the master to render his rapid utterance understood—" By the intersection of that imaginary circle, which we call a parallel of latitude, with the meridian of the place in question." Having replied to this query, he asked the boy at the stand—" Who was the first Roman emperor that visited England, then called Britain, and in what year?" This was a puzzler. He could not answer to it; so he lost his conspicuous station, which was occupied by the more fortunate querist.


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