It is much to be wished, that some plan could be devised to supersede the necessity of spellkeeping by the book-keepers. There can be no hesitation in saying, that this practice, as it is generally conducted, is one of the opprobria of Jamaïca, and other islands where it prevails. It is inimical to the health of a numerous and valuable class of people in the island (though so much kept in the back ground); it is a principal discouragement to their entering into and persevering in their line of life; and how, it may be asked, can it be expected, that men deprived of their natural and necessary rest, should be capable of performing their duty by day with spirit and alacrity? If a decent and comfortable apartment, &c. were to be provided on the spot, the bookkeeper, it is to be presumed, could do the necessary duties, and at the same time enjoy a portion of repose, under certain arrangements. Some estates adopt this humane regulation.

The salary of the book-keeper was formerly only from thirty or forty, to sixty or seventy pounds currency per annum; so that many of them could barely furnish themselves with wearing apparel on this paltry sum; and if they had the misfortune to get a severe fit of illness, the doctor (a very money-making profession in this country) generously came forward with a bill of forty or fifty pounds for medicine and attendance on them! In lieu of the risk of paying this enor6

mous sum for a fit of sickness, many of the estate's surgeons now compound with the bookkeeper for five pounds per annum, sick or well! At present the book-keepers' salaries are from fifty to eighty pounds per annum; and the head book-keepers on the larger estates have sometimes an hundred pounds. As the amount of one deficiency (that is, one white person short of the proportion to negroes and stock required by law) is now fifty pounds, no salary under that amount can be given to a white man doing duty in the militia. The salary of an overseer is from an hundred and forty to three hundred pounds per annum.

(CHAPTER XI.

Medical men.-Tradesmen on estates.-Jobbers. -Surveyors.- Merchants. - Shopkeepers.Vendue masters.-Wharfingers, &c.

BESIDES the overseer and book-keeper, there is on the estates sometimes a surgeon (for three, four, or more properties adjoining) and tradesmen of different descriptions; as a carpenter, a mason, and, on the large properties, a cooper and blacksmith.

The surgeon is either employed by a proprietor of two, three, or more estates, to attend the hospitals (or hot-houses, as they are here called) of those properties alone; in which case, he usually resides on one of them; or he practises for a number of properties belonging to different people, besides the smaller settlements in the vicinity of his practice. He has ten shillings annually per head for every negro on those properties; so that if his practice should be extensive (and some surgeons have ten or fifteen estates, &c. under their care, comprising a negro population of from two to three thousand) his income, including his white practice, must be very considerable. This practice is usually attended by the surgeon, with the aid of only one

assistant. The hospitals on the estates should, if possible, be visited every other day. But this cannot be done by two medical men in a practice so considerable, particularly if the estates, &c. lie scattered over any great extent of country: indeed, at a sickly period, strict medical attention to all the patients under their care must become utterly impracticable. It would therefore be highly proper to limit or proportion the quantum of practice to the number of practitioners, even if those sons of Esculapius were to be compensated for this by raising their emoluments; though it must be confessed, they would have little cause to complain of the tardiness of fortune, without such remuneration for yielding to a necessary regulation; for, besides their fees of attendance (viz. a pistole for every visit, &c. on a white patient) they have a monstrous profit upon their drugs, which may be said to be charged ad libitum. It used to be observed, that many of the surgeons who were wont to emigrate to Jamaica, were not the most competent that could be desired, dispensing with the usual formality of college lectures, hospital practice, &c. and disdaining any other title to set up as a healer of disorders, than that of having served a few years' apprenticeship to an apothecary, and perhaps a voyage or two on board of an African trader. It must however be confessed, that there are now many very able practitioners in the island;

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though there are but few regular bred physicians, or doctors of medicine. Perhaps the old experienced surgeon, who, by a long residence and extensive practice in the country, has acquired a thorough knowledge of the diseases incident to the climate, and the most successful mode of treating them, is a more desirable medical attendant than the regular-bred young physician, just emerged from the cloisters of a college, and fortified with Greek, Latin, and his diploma.

The tradesmen are usually employed on the estates at salaries of from an hundred and forty to two hundred pounds currency per annum. They do not perform much manual work themselves; their employment chiefly is the superintendance of the gangs of negro tradesmen. The jobber is one who having (chiefly as a planter) acquired a gang of forty, fifty, or more negroes, and a mountain settlement, retires from the planting profession, and devotes his attention partly to the improvement of his settlement, and partly to the improvement of his finances, by working, or jobbing out his slaves; that is, undertaking various kinds of work at certain regular prices.

A surveyor is a lucrative employment in Jamaica, being handsomely paid for his labours, and having always abundant employment; for there are few surveys (particularly of immense tracts of woodland) so accurately taken as not to leave room for still further precision in others: