Directory_and_Chronicle_1845 — Page 224

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This is a large number of human beings to be crowded into so limited a space, and one would infer from such statistics that the prosperity of trade and minufactures must be great to allure together and support so many persons in so small a compass. How far this prosperity really extends, the writer has not facts sufficient upon which to found any statement beyond what has already been said above, except that the majority of the population does not exhibit any external evidences of being in prosperous circumstances. Many complain of oppressive taxes. To one wholly ignorant of the chara- cter of this people and passing through this island, the inference from what he would see, would be that the place is on the retrograde-or at least stationary. True, he would see the fields in a high state of cultivation and many residences possessing comfort and plenty within -but he wonld also see a far greater number of wretched dwellings and neglected temples and a vast amount of squalledness. These things would indicate anything but general prosperity. The demand for laborers is fully supplied and much more than supplied, conse- quently the fields will be well cultivated and the wealthy will occupy fair dwellings, but for the laborers themselves all is pressing necessity or pinching poverty. A few are enriched by commerce and abound in plenty; the mass live as they can, consuming to day the little they have earned and compelled to permit the morrow to care for the things of itself.

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