cial suicide to the planters, but the motto adopted by many was "a short life and a merry one." They really seem to have ignored expense. Ere long revelers who had owned many acres were laid under the sod, and others came into possession. Only a stone proclaims that their lives ended prematurely. Peace to their ashes! One deplores their follies and passes on. "Minard," lying one and one half miles from Brown's Town, is as beautiful an estate as exists in Jamaica. Its velvet lawns and noble old trees remind one of some grand park in the motherland. Some of its former owners squandered their all in profligate living and the property belongs to a colored mortgagee. The careful observer is forced to the conclusion that had the original proprietors drunk less and worked harder, things would have been different. The most pronounced advocate of whiskey and rum drinking, if unbiased, must admit that intemperance has been the chief cause of wrecked prosperity in many of these cases. In its train followed indebtedness, which has for years been, and remains, the curse of the Island. It is the fruitful source of much dissatisfaction and hopeless despondency there. On nearing Brown's Town the tourist is surprised at the red earth of the road. It was found in Manchester Parish that excellent bricks could be made from this particular soil. A geologist who traveled through the Island pronounced the earth excellent for converting into umber. Natives call the limestone near by "rock stone." Lime trees abound. Thousands of limes are lost Lime Juce in the Tropics 649 by rotting, because, even with cheap labor, it only pays to pick this fruit at irregular intervals. Limes must be picked perfectly green, then allowed to "cure" for a couple of days on boards exposed to the sun, then they have to be wiped dry and packed closely, in order to reach America in proper condition. If picked "on the turn" they are sure to arrive at destination partly rotten. The price in America varies greatly. Sometimes an entire shipment realizes $10.00 per single barrel; again, a shipment of equally good quality will only command $1.25. Limes can be bought at the wharf in Jamaica for six shillings ($1.50) per barrel; allowing for freight, insurance and charges, the profit is large. Unfortunately there is only a limited sale for them and that only in our warmest weather. This restricts the business, Some estate proprietors own small presses and concentrating apparatus. These are employed in the pressing of lime juice, which is largely used in England. Concentrated lime juice is obtained by boiling, and from it citric acid is obtained. The greatest demand for lime juice exists in England and Russia. The British Admiralty orders supplies of lime juice carried aboard vessels in the British navy as a preventive of scurvy. The British Board of Trade requires its use aboard vessels in the merchant service. In the shipping articles, which seamen must sign before sailing, it is expressly stipulated that every seaman in tropical latitudes shall have a regular allowance of lime juice. As with several Jamaican products, so in this, the cost of packages forms a large item in the juice business. The fruit used is not counted as of much value. The day will no doubt come when orange juice also will be expressed and boiled for other purposes than wine, into which it is at present converted. A large percentage of the orange crop comes from "Brown's Town way." The town of Brown's Town is healthful and remarkably clean. There is a better type of architecture visible here, and every man of importance tries to surpass his neighbor in the construction of his house and its adornment. Tourists are reminded of the pretty homes of Connecticut and New Jersey, and but for the cocoanut and breadfruit trees that raise their heads above the houses, would fancy themselves in the home land. The great drawback here, however, is the absence of sweet, running water. The water supply (just as in the Bermudas) consists entirely of rain water collected in large tanks. A financial reward awaits the enterprising contractors who will teach residents the value of artesian wells. It is more than likely that before a great while subscriptions will be raised for driving a proper well. There was an artesian well driven during the Jamaica Exhibition of 1891 to teach people how to sink wells. But they were slow to learn the lesson. Near here is the coffee district. Coffee plants do not thrive except at an elevation. A few straggling trees may be found some three hundred feet above sea level, but for successful crops the plants must grow at an altitude of at least fourteen hundred feet. To be continued.) (Begun in issue March 16. Mr. Edward Atkinson and the Anti-Expansion Society. 653 655 658 EDITORS CHAIR Only recently has it been possible to learn that many subscriptions from school-teachers were booked last year at $1 for 52 weeks. Many of these subscriptions will shortly expire, and the present management is being asked almost daily to "accept the same price for another year." It Copyright, 1899, by The Great Round World Company. has been necessary to write to all teachers who requested this reduction that it will not be accepted. (The present management has filled every one of these subscriptions gratis, although it never received a cent from any one of the teachers to whom the cut price was allowed.) Although THE GREAT ROUND WORLD would regret to have old subscribers withdraw merely because they will not again receive the paper for $1 per year, it must make clear that every one of the cut-price subscriptions, booked by the former publisher, helped to bring on disaster. If THE GREAT ROUND WORLD is not worth $1.50, it will be better not to renew. Certainly it will not help the present management to book subscriptions below $1.50, and it positively will not do so. Fortunately there are thousands who believe the paper as now published is worth several times its moderate subscription price. Among them is a Baltimore banker, who wrote: I acknowledge receipt of the package of bound volumes of THE GREAT ROUND WORLD, and enclose herein a check on the First National Bank for $2.15 in payment of the enclosed bill. THE GREAT ROUND WORLD is looked for with great interest by my boy of thirteen, and I am frank to say that it is looked forward to with equal interest by his father. I regard this publication as an interesting epitome of current history, and just the thing for the "busy man." I think it is worth two or three times the price we pay for it. This was followed by a letter from a teacher in South Dakota, who wrote: THE GREAT ROUND WORLD has been of inestimable value to me in my school work, and also as a means of keeping myself well informed on current events of the world. I like particularly the science articles you have put in lately; in fact, |