The West indies in 1837

Page 287

JAMAICA.

271

hire as a domestic, a circumstance whicli made it evi­ dent she was a non-predial. This conclusion was however carefully avoided, and the poor people were too ignorant of their own rights to be aware of the importance of the distinction. Her husband wished to give evidence to the state of her health, but one of the local magistrates silenced him by saying " Ar'n't you going to advance the money ? We don't want your evidence:" although they had taken the evidence on oath of her master, a person equally interested on the other side. She was valued as a predial for sixty-three pounds. The next valuation was of a predial appren­ tice named THOMAS BROWN, who though a much stronger and more able negro, was also rated at two shillings and sixpence per day, or sixty-five pounds for his remaining term of apprenticeship. His case how­ ever was only comparatively less unjust than the pre­ ceding, as a coSee planter in the neighbourhood told us he could procure as much labor as he wanted at one shilling and eight-pence per day. In a case of com­ plaint, which was decided at this Court, where the pri­ soner was sent for five days to the treadmill, the magistrate, J. K . DAWSON, observed to the overseer, " You will understand when I send apprentices to the treadmill, they are to repay the time." This, though a frequent practice, is grossly illegal and contrary to the express instructions of the Governor, and exposes the apprentice to the dangers and temptations of starva­ tion, as in Jamaica the negros are now solely dependent on labor in their own time for subsistence. In the evening we accompanied the minister to a station in the Clarendon mountains, about six miles distant from Four Paths. It commands a beautiful view of the adjoining pai'ish of Vere, which is a level


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