The State and Prospects of Jamaica; With Appended Remarks on Its Advantages for the Cure of Pulmonary Diseases. and Suggestions to Invalids and Others Going to That Colony (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: GENERAL REMARKS ON THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF JAMAICA. Though Jamaica is not a land of romance, it presents many important subjects of scrutiny and reflection to a thoughtful mind. We are there invited to consider how far a race of different clime, lineage, and colour from ourselves, have distinguishing mental attributes?what properties were developed by slavery where it was long and fully established?what eifects have followed from its more recent and entire abolition?what success has attended the preaching of the gospel where numerous missionaries have prosecuted their benevolent enterprises for a long series of years?and what the present distress of the colony requires at the hands of enlightened philanthropists. These queries are highly important, but they are also of difficult solution. The facts to whichthey relate have had a mutual and complex influence; and the most careful analysis could not enable the shrewdest observer to decide, in every instance, how much an individual agency has contributed to the aggregate result. The condition of the negro, as he is found in Jamaica, is no doubt a chronicle of the dire vicissitudes which have befallen his expatriated people; but it is only the Grod of providence who can perfectly decipher the characters in which his dispensations are thus recorded. Even though we should attain to an accurate knowledge of one section of this colony, it might furnish very inadequate grounds for general conclusions. The several parts of the island present great natural diversities. In some districts the ground is low and flat; in others, huge ridges of mountains elevate their heads through the clouds; aiid the temperature, of course, changes with these varying elevations. ' On this subject, ' says Mr B. Edwards, ' I speak from actual experien...