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PICKINGS AND GLEANINGS.
receive to enable him to keep up all this state of grandeur ? surety it must be something handsome ? " In answer, it must be remarked, that such affairs are not conducted in the West Indies as they are in England. This is the country for a poor man to make a display in—here he may run his carriage without fearing a visit from a tax-gatherer ; or dress up his servant in livery without having to pay 1l. 4s. per annum.. His wine costs him about 2s. sterling per bottle; claret, Is. ; and "real Cognac" can be obtained for 2s. 6d. Before emancipation, the attorney and manager employed as many of the slaves as suited them, in the capacity of domestic servants, which slaves were of course fed from the estate provision ; then the attorney has one or two horses allowed him, and if he purchases any more from his private funds, the estate finds them in corn and grass ; he keeps a flock of sheep, for which the property also stands caterer ; and now and then his employer may forward him a hogshead of porter, or a pipe of Madeira, besides other little presents, consisting of barrels of beef, or pork, or any other little matters. Thus, in the end, his pomp and grandeur is kept up at a very moderate charge to his own pockets. It cannot be supposed that I intend to assert, that the aristocracy of Antigua is wholly composed of the fungi tribe, or that all her planters are of the upstartish class it has pleased me to describe. Far from it ; an attentive perusal of these pages will prove, on the contrary, that there are to be found among them families, whose genealogical tree bears many a goodly shoot—through whose veins runs a stream of England's richest blood : the names of Warner, Williams, Byam, Martin, Ottleys, with many others, have long stood pre-eminent in the annals of Antigua; while their descendants have kept up their high station in the society of the island. But to return to the mushroom gentry. While they are travelling the high-road to preferment and honour, their wives are proceeding with railway speed in the paths of