slavery was abolished. The planters undertook to maintain or introduce
the tenancy-at-will system, and to reduce the wages below the
market-rate. Whenever the negroes retired from the estate-work, they
were summarily ejected from their houses and lands, and their little
gardens were destroyed. The natural effect of such an injudicious policy
was, that the negro preferred squatting on the government lands about
him, or buying a small, cheap plot, or hiring a farm, to remaining under
the planters, and soon some 7,000 laborers had left the estates.

[Footnote I: Burnley's _Trinidad_.]

Many associated the idea of servitude with labor in the fields, and,
abandoning agriculture, took to trade in the towns and villages, which
they still pursue. Some 4,000 remained on the estates, and have never
progressed, like their more independent brethren. The criminal records
show a greater proportion of crime among them than among any other
class. Of the others, five-sixths became proprietors of farms from one
to five acres each, and 4,500 hire themselves occasionally to the
estates every year.

One effect of the unfortunate contentions between capital and labor in
the island has been, that no general system of public instruction was
introduced till recently; education was entirely neglected: though now,
under the new system, the people will receive much more general
instruction, for which purpose $20,000 were appropriated in 1859.

The public morality under such circumstances is of course of a low
order. Out of 136 children born in Port-of-Spain, 100 were illegitimate.
The convictions in the island for felony were 63; for misdemeanor, 865;
for debt, 230.