At Santa Cruz there is a well organized and admirably conducted Alms House, with an Infirmary attached. The wards are well worth a visit and the entire institution is a model of what such an establishment should be. Poor relief is also afforded to some extent on the out-door system. The parish is traversed in all directions by excellent roads and these are being still further improved. One hundred and ten miles of Paroohial Roads have been transferred to the Public Works Department under Law 17 of 1890, thus leaving a larger amount of local funds for the improvement and maintenance of the roads which still remain in the care of the parochial authorities. St. Elizabeth is divided for the purposes of the parochial elections into six divisions, returning 15 members to the Parochial Board.

A Circuit Court is held at Black River three times a year. Resident Magistrates' Courts are held at Black River, Santa Cruz and Malvern; and Petty Sessions Courts at Black River, Cheltenham, Lacovia, Malvern, Santa Cruz and Balaclava.

MANCHESTER.

Manchester was separated from the adjoining parishes of St. Elizabeth and Clarendon in 1814, and was named after the Duke of Manchester who was Governor of the island at the time. Mandeville is the chief town and is one of the prettiest towns in the island. Its situation on the top of a mountain 2,200 feet above sea level is very picturesque and the tidiness and cleanliness in which the buildings are kept are remarkable. It is in a central part of the parish and contains an Episcopal Church, a Wesleyan Chapel, a Chapel belonging to the London Missionary Society, a Baptist Chapel, a Free School, a Court House, a Constabulary Station, and a Public General Hospital, The lands were originally divided by the Parochial Authorities into half acre lots and sold at an average of £50 a lot. The first settlers found very great inconvenience in dry weather from the want of water, but public tanks have since been erected and the supply of water is now ample and good. Very comfortable accommodation is to be found at Miss Roy's, Mrs. Halliday's and Mrs. Senior's lodgings and at Brook's Hotel. A Club is established in the town.

Mandeville is becoming very much frequent as a winter resort for visitors from Great Britain, Canada, and the United States. The climate is salubrious and the temperature ranges from 70° to 75° in the day time to 48° to 54 at nights.

Porus is a populous village where a brisk trade is carried on; it contains an Episcopal Church, a Baptist Chapel and a fine Chapel of the London Missionary Society, a Constabulary Station, &c. This was the terminal station of the Jamaica Government Railway; the extension to Montego Bay is now in course of construction. There are other villages in Manchester, such as Newport, Victoria Town, Barracks and Devon, but they are not of much commercial importance. A fine building comprising Court House and Police Station has been completed at Porus, also at " The Cottage," Mile Gully.

There are four Railway Stations in the Parish: Porus, Williamsfield, Kendal and Green Vale. The nearest station to Mandeville is Williamsfield, four miles distant; there are two trains to and from Kingston daily.

The Manchester orange has obtained a name in the American markets for its size and flavour and is exported to a considerable extent. The climate of the Manchester hills is very salubrious.

The principal products of the parish are coffee and pimento, but ginger is cultivated to some extent. The total number of acres under cultivation is 15,600, of which 8,252 are in ground provisions. There are 8,744 acres in Guinea grass, 24,045 in common pasture, 3,082 in common pasture and pimento, and 86,420 in wood and ruinate. The number of acres under cultivation in the principal product, namely, coffee, is 6,970. The coffee crop in 1891-92 amounted to 2,000 cwts. There are no sugar estates in the parish but grazing pens are numerous on which fine cattle and blood horses are largely reared. The cattle and live stock on the pens may be set down at 5,100 cattle, 1,240 horsekind and 400 sheep.

According to the Census of 1891 the population of the parish is 55,462; 27,173 males and 28,289 females. This shews an increase of 7,004 since 1881, when the population was 48,458. Males have increased by 3,551, and females by 3,453. The area of the parish is 310 square miles and the population to each square mile is 178.

The inhabitants are regarded as being among the most prosperous in the island. The parish is abundantly supplied with good schools for the peasantry; it has also a Normal Moravian Training College for male teachers. The parish is divided for the purposes of the parochial elections into 3 divisions, returning 15 members to the Parochial Board.

A Circuit Court is held at Mandeville three times a year. Resident Magistrates' Courts are held at Mandeville, Porus, Lincoln, Wigton and Cottage. Petty Sessions Courts are held at Mandeville, Wigton, Cottage, Porus and Lincoln.

CLARENDON.

This parish was named in honour of a celebrated Lord Chancellor of England. It is one of the largest parishes of the island, and for electoral and revenue purposes is divided into three Districts, Upper, Middle and Lower.

The principal towns or villages in the Upper District are Chapelton, Rock River and Frankfield; in the Middle District, May Pen, Four Paths and Hayes; and in the Vere or Lower District, the Alley, and the Rest, or Milk River Village. The shipping ports and wharves are at Salt River, Carlisle Bay and Milk River.

Chapelton is a town of considerable commercial importance and a very brisk trade in coffee is carried on there, during the coffee season. A few years ago large quantities of sugar, cultivated by small settlers, cured in barrels, used to be sold in Chapelton, but that trade considerably declined during the recent years of depression in the sugar market. On better prices being obtained, however, the peasantry immediately resumed the use of the small sugar mills (commonly called "John Crow Mills" from the number of stock formerly killed in working them and devoured by the John Crows) To enable them to do this the owners of these mills had to submit to their being inspected and certified in terms of "The Prevention of Accidents at Sugar Mills Law," which was passed in 1888. Many of the settlers in this District have recently bought and erected Chattanoga Iron Mills (first brought to the island at the Exhibition in 1891) and they find them to work most satisfactorily and save a great deal in labour. Altogether there are about 800 small sugar mills in Clarendon, of which over 600 are in the Upper District.

Chapelton contains an Episcopal Church, St. Paul's; an Independent Chapel, Salem, in connection with the London Missionary Society; a small Presbyterian Church recently built; a Court House, (containing offices of an Assistant Collector of Taxes, and a Deputy Clerk of the Courts, both stationed in Chapelton) Constabulary Barracks, and Inspectors Quarters, a Public General Hospital, Public Works Office and Store, a Poor House, a large covered Market, Post and Telegraph Office, and several large stores. The population of Chapelton is about 900. It stands on a small hill which is naturally drained on every side, and is remarkably healthy, as indeed are undoubtedly the whole of Upper Clarendon, and the Clarendon mountains.

Rock River is a small village about five miles to the east of Chapelton, near a sugar estate of the same name, and contains a Constabulary Station and a few shops. Frankfield is an important village 12 miles to the north-west of Chapelton on a good driving road, and is the centre of a large and flourishing agricultural district. In the village is a new Church, a Post Office, a dispensary regularly attended by the D.M.O. from Chapelton, and several shops. Trout Hall, a large banana and tobacco plantation is in this District.

May Pen, or Lime Savannah, is a rising village which a few years ago was not in existence. It is the most important Railway Station on the line between Spanish Town and Balaclava and collects the traffic of a large part of the valley of the Rio Minho. Close to the station the river (here called the Dry River from the fact of its bed being dry for the greater part of the year) is spanned by a handsome lattice girder bridge, used for both road and railway. May Pen has been fixed as the head station of the parish, under Law 20 of 1867, and in the Court House are the Courts' Office, Collectorate and Parochial Offices, the Public Works and Constabulary Offices having been recently removed to Chapelton. There is a large Public General Hospital, a Police Station, an Iron Market, and a Post and Telegraph Office. A large trade in logwood has been carried on for some years.

Four Paths is situated on the main road about four miles west of May Pen. There

is a Railway Station in its immediate vicinity. The trade of the place has much fallen off of late years. It has a Public Market, Constabulary Station, and a Post Office. Hayes is an uninteresting small village about seven miles south of May Pen, built on a savannah of the same. It would be difficult to account for its existence on so arid and unproductive a site, but it has nevertheless a substantial Public Market, generally well attended and supplied, a Constabulary Station, Post Office, and numerous small stores. The water supply has been recently improved at the instance of the Parochial Board by the erection of a force pump in the only available well in the locality.

The Rest or Milk River Village, is reached by an excellent level road, a branch from the main road between Four Paths and Porus, or from Clarendon Park Station a distance of 10 or 11 miles. The village has several good stores, a Post and Tele. graph Office, and a Constabulary Station. A Resident Magistrate's Court is now held there once a month. The Milk River is navigable for lighters for four or five miles up the river. The Custom House and several wharves are on the banks of the river. A large business in logwood and other produce is done there. The river used to abound in alligators but the constant passage of boats has made them scarce. The Milk River Bath (of which an account is given in another part of this Handbook) stands on the west bank of the river about three miles from the Rest Village. The bath is supplied by a warm spring highly beneficial in cases of rheumatism, and many other diseases.

The Alley, which was formerly the capital of the parish of Vere (now incorporated with Clarendon) is a small village on the banks of the Rio Minho and is rendered of some importance from the fact of its being in the immediate proximity to a large number of sugar estates. In this District may be seen some of the finest cane cultivation in the island, the estate of Money Musk, Amity Hall, Bog, Morland, Hillside, etc., having very large acreages in canes, while they have also all the latest and most improved machinery and appliances for the manufacture of sugar and rum. The village contains a Court House, (with a Sub-Collectorate), Constabulary Station, a Post and Telegraph Office; and in the vicinity are a large Public General Hospital and Poor House. The Parochial Board has recently imported a new Iron Market which has been erected on a good site, to replace the former inferior accommodation.

Carlisle Bay is noted as being the spot where the colonial militia met the French under DuCasse in 1694 and after three days' gallant resistance drove them to their ships with a loss of 700 men. The invaders had already for nearly a month plundered and destroyed the sea-side plantations and murdered or kidnapped the gentry and their slaves. Bridges states that "this was the most formidable attack which was ever made upon the shores of Jamaica."

Sawkins says in his report on the Geology of Jamaica: "The geology of this parish is perhaps more interesting than that of any in the island. The Clarendon mines at Charing Cross and Stanford Hill afford a nearer approach to true lodes or mineral veins than any of the other metalliferous deposits of Jamaica.”

A main road has recently been made from Chapelton to Cave Valley in St. Ann's, and under the provisions of Law 17 of 1890, the Public Works Department has taken over and reconstructed some 90 miles of the most important of the old parochial roads, thus making wheeled traffic possible to nearly every District of the parish.

The Bull Head, rising to a height of 3,600 feet or thereabouts and situated near its northern limit, is the highest land in the parish. This mountain is as nearly as possible the centre of the island and is a conspicuous object to vessels making the island from the south. The ascent is easy and the view from it on a clear day magnificent. It commands the entire parish; to the north lies the parish of St. Ann; to the west the Manchester hills, and eastward an uninterrupted prospect to the Blue Mountain Peak.

The climate of Upper Clarendon including the Mocho Mountains is unsurpassed in the island, with fairly good roads and the scenery is beautiful.

The prosperity of the parish generally has suffered and is suffering from the abandonment of sugar estates, over thirty having reverted to bush in the upper district

within the past generation, while nearly every year the number decreases on the seaboard. In 1837 there were 69 sugar estates in full working order in the parish (including the district of Vere), and in addition there were then 38 coffee plantations. There are now but 17 sugar estates in the parish, on which 1,375 hogsheads of sugar and 1,350 puncheons of rum and 8,049 cwt. of coffee were produced last year.

A fine tobacco plantation was for some years worked principally by Čubans at Morgan's Valley, near Chapelton, once the property of Sir Henry Morgan, who settled it and called it after his own name, but it was abandoned some years ago. Several indigo walks were established in the Vere district by the early English settlers, but they had to be abandoned in consequence of the heavy import duty which was levied on the article in the English market. 50,000 cwts. of indigo per annum were produced from these indigo plantations.

The total number of acres under cultivatition is 19,935 of which 5,432 are in sugar canes, 2,967 in coffee, and 10,830 are in ground provisions; 6,001 acres are in Guinea grass, 23,101 in common pasture and 176,947 in wood and ruinate. The cattle may be set down at 6,798, the horsekind at 2,210 and the sheep at 350.

According to the census of 1891 the population of the parish was 57,105; 28,338 males and 28,767 females. The increase during the past decennial period has been 7,260-made up of 3,158 males and 4,102 females. The area of the parish is 467 square miles and the population to each square mile is 122.

A Circuit Court is held at May Pen three times a year. Resident Magistrates and Petty Sessions Courts are held at the Alley, May Pen, Chapelton and Milk River. The parish returns a member to the Legislative Council, and is divided into three divisions for purposes of parochial elections, returning 14 members to the Parochial Board, which meets at May Pen monthly.

ST. CATHERINE.

This parish derived its name from the Queen of Charles II. It consists of what before the passing of Law 20 of 1867 constituted the parishes of St. Catherine, St. Dorothy, St. John and St. Thomas-in-the-Vale. The chief towns and villages are Spanish Town, Old Harbour and Linstead.

Spanish Town, or Saint Jago de la Vega, was the ancient capital of the island. It is situated on the banks of the Rio Cobre, from which it derives its water supply. Amongst the more important public buildings are the old King's House, the official residence of former Governors of the island, the building formerly used for the Assembly and Legislative Council, the Court House, the Record Office, the Registrar General's Office, the Middlesex and Surrey County Gaol, the St. Catherine District Prison, the Lepers' Home and the Constabulary Depôt Buildings. There are two Episcopal Churches, namely, the Cathedral Church, dedicated to St. Katherine, and Trinity Chapel. The former was the Spanish Red Cross Church of St. Peter. The mortal remains of many of the Governors of Jamaica and of their wives and of the more eminent early settlers of the colony are interred within the Church or in the Churchyard attached. The town also contains a Roman Catholic Church, and Chapels attached to the Wesleyan and Baptist bodies; commodious markets, opened by Sir Anthony Musgrave on the 19th of March, 1880; an Alms House and a Public General Hospital, Smiths and Beckford's Middle Grade School, partly endowed. There are also a Town Hall, in which there is a stage for dramatic representations, and a Billiard Club; and there has recently been established an excellent hotel known as the "Hotel Rio Cobre." At this town the railroad from the north and west meet.

Among the antiquities of the town may be noted the marble statue of Lord Rodney, by Bacon, and the two large brass guns which were captured by the Admiral in 1781 from the French fleet under Count de Grasse; the "Eagle House," once surrounded by a moat, and formerly the residence of the Earl of Inchiquin when Governor of Jamaica; a tamarind tree in the grounds of the Infant School, which local tradition points out as that under which Colonels Tyson and Raymond were shot for mutiny, and the foundations of the old Spanish White Cross Church and of the Convent attached to it, which may still be traced in the street named thereafter.

Old Harbour Market contains a Court House, an Episcopal Church, a Wesleyan

Chapel and a Public Market. About a mile from the town stands the old Parish Church, built by the earlier English settlers, in one of the aisles of which is a slab which tells that the person commemorated came to the island with Penn and Venables. The town has lately been supplied with water from a river six miles off, the want of water had long been an obstacle to the success of the place. The Ludford Endowed School is also here.

Old Harbour Bay was formerly called "Esquivel," after the Spanish Governor of that name, who established it as a ship-building port. It possesses a fine harbour studded with little low cays and rocky islets. "This noble Bay, when Columbus discovered it, was inhabited by thousands of Indians, the most intelligent and the most civilized of all the aborigines of the Antilles that he had seen.' The port has been reopened and a fair amount of business is done there. There is an Episcopal Church and also a Baptist Chapel in the town.

Linstead, which is situated in the centre of an almost circular hollow, shut in by mountains, is a thriving and increasing township. It contains a Court House, a Wesleyan Chapel, a Public General Hospital, Alms House and many fine stores. An Episcopal Church and a Baptist Chapel are in the vicinity. The recent Railway Extension to this place is developing the great resources of the surrounding country and rendering it one of the most important trading centres in the island. The approach to Linstead from Spanish Town by the driving road is through what is called the "Bog Walk," one of the finest bits of scenery in the island. "A torrent gushing in misty depths and fighting its downward course among scattered rocks, the narrowness of the long ravine or den through which it rushes, and the steepness and loftiness of the precipices on either side, with the richness and variety of tropical vegetation growing in all the exuberance of its foliage on every spot where a plant can rest -these features unite in imparting to the scene all the imposing effect of blending beauty and grandeur." The Episcopal Church near Linstead has become historical from the circumstance of all the public records having been deposited there under a militia guard during the period of the anticipated French invasion of 1805.

Six miles from Spanish Town to the south-east is Passage Fort, the landing place of the English conquerors, and the place where the Rio Cobre empties itself into the sea. It was once a port of some importance and was connected with Spanish Town (then the seat of Government) by a line of stage-coaches; it is now a fishing village, with but few houses, the principal building being a small Chapel belonging to the Baptist denomination.

About four miles from Passage Fort and six from Spanish Town lies the sea-side village of Port Henderson, which was once a place of considerable resort for change of air. It contains a mineral spring which is enclosed as a bath. The buildings have lately been repaired by Mr. R. H. B. Hotchkin, the lessee, and comfortable accommodation is now available for visitors. There is a main road between Spanish Town and this place. In the immediate neighbourhood are the Apostles' Battery, which has been restored by the Imperial authorities, and the quarantine station (of which a full account is given in another part of this work). On the hill at the back of the lodgings is Rodney's Look-out, from which the Admiral kept watch over the adjacent sea. On the grounds of the quarantine station (Green Bay) there is still the tomb of Lewis Galdy, who was "miraculously saved" from the earthquake of 1692.

Between Port Henderson and Passage Fort (on the seaward) is Fort Augusta, which was once a military station, and where all ammunition and other combustible materials must be deposited by vessels proceeding to Kingston. The fort was planned by Captain Knowles (afterwards Governor of the island) for the protection of Kingston. There are many grazing pens in the plains of St. Catherine which are remuneratively managed as sheep and cattle farms; and the salt ponds district (lying between Spanish Town, Port Henderson and Passage Fort) is noted for the excellent quality of its mutton, and for the fine fish taken from the large salt pond, especially the well known" calipeva." The inhabitants of Spanish Town were formerly supplied with salt to the extent of 5,000 bushels a year from the pond referred to.

The principal products of the parish are sugar, rum, coffee, bananas, oranges, corn, tobacco, cocoas, grass and milk. The Rio Cobre Canal which irrigates the St. Cathe