the fruit loaded into either iron or wooden fruit cars, which are spotted in short sidings of one kilometre interval along the line. The cars are heavily padded with dry leaves to prevent bruising, as the banana is of particularly delicate texture. Black markings appear ing on ripe bananas may have been noticed by the purchaser: these are due to bruising.

Constant supervision has to be exercised by the overseer, who rides round the plantation on either a horse or mule to ensure that his fruit is cut an even grade. The grade or degree of fulness will vary will vary according to whether the shipment is for England or the United States. England, owing to the seventeen days' voyage, will require a far greener thinner fruit than the States. The district superintendent also supervises a cutting, and can be seen passing up and down the line on a small motor trolley, stopping at each fruit car to inspect the grade.

At the end of the day superintendents, overseers, and fruit contractors return to their homes wearied in mind by the continual strain of selecting fruit, and in body by the fierce rays of the tropical sun. As the sun sinks below the low purple hills surrounding the valley, the sounds of locomotives, picking up the loaded cars, can be heard through the evening silence. A man may justly feel that he has contributed towards the products of the world as he VOL. CCXXIII.-NO. MCCCXLVII.

watches the hundreds of cars fade into the tropical night as they rumble towardsthe coast.

Loading the fruit commences at an early hour, and before daybreak a motley crowd of niggers, with a touch of almost every other nationality under the sun, begins to forgather at the entrance to the dock. If the traveller is unwise enough to venture from his bed at such an early hour, he will find it expedient to carry a handkerchief well soaked in eau-de-cologne !

The fruit cars are hauled to within a few yards of the steamer lying steamer lying alongside the wharf, where the bananas are first unloaded by hand, and then, being placed on steam elevators, are transported direct from the side of the wharf to the ship's hold, at the rate of about 5000 an hour.

Ships, specially built or converted for carrying banana cargoes, are utilised by most of the large companies, some of whom combine their bananas with a thoroughly comfortable, if not luxurious, passenger service. Many are the pleasant cruises to be had on the heaving bosom of the Caribbean Sea in quest of this luscious fruit.

The holds of most of these vessels are refrigerated, so that the bananas may be kept in an even temperature, irrespective of climatical conditions. A special staff of engineers is employed for this purpose, the thermometers being watched with as much care as in the ward of a hospital.

E

The monthly pay day on a banana plantation is a general holiday for the labourers. The pay train leaves the coast in the early morning, stopping at each farm to pay off the men. I always pity the paymaster and other unfortunate occupants with the responsibility of a hundred or so thousand dollars, and only the protection of a few bare-footed soldiers, who would doubtless make a speedy exit in the event of trouble.

After having received their pay the men congregate round the camp fires, bargaining for merchandise goods sold by Syrian and Armenian pedlars, and purchasing cheap liquor distilled in the interior regions. As the night goes on merrymaking turns to quarrelling and a drunken debauch. Past grievances are remembered, and often knives and revolvers come in play. The morning dawns on a sorry sight that sometimes resembles a charnel-house rather than a plantation camp. I have known on one farm alone eight murders in one night! On these occasions the commandant and his soldiers are sent for, but they usually arrive long after the murderers have evaded the hand of justice by fleeing to the near-by jungle. The Government is quite incapable of enforcing its laws, and hundreds of the most brutal murders go unavenged each year. Men will frequently be found who openly boast of having killed ten or twenty victims with their own hands!

A bad state of affairs, and one that will never be rectified without outside intervention.

It is almost impossible to obtain satisfactory work from the labourers on the day following their being paid off.

"A morning after the night before" feeling pervades the atmosphere, and half-drunken men, in extremely quarrelsome moods, are still to be seen reeling about the camps and railroad. These are the times when the overseer may find life just a trifle too hectic, as will be seen from the following authentic story.

A certain overseer, whom we will call Brown, was having breakfast in his farmhouse, preparatory to going out on a fruit-cutting, when one of his contractors, a Salvadoranian by name José Garcia, walked up to the front door requesting an advance of money. Brown naturally refused the request, and told the man to go back to

his work immediately. Garcia, mumbling an incoherent answer, returned to the camp. In about five minutes Brown set out on foot to the labourers' quarters, a distance of about one hundred yards, to make certain that all the contractors had turned out to cut fruit, for frequently after pay day difficulty may be experienced. He was met by his coloured foreman, who told him in a very excitable manner that all the men had gone out to work with the exception of José Garcia, who was drunk and endeavouring to cause trouble.

Brown ordered the foreman to arrange for another contractor to cut through Garcia's sections. Unfortunately the order was repeated in Garcia's hearing, and he immediately accosted Brown with his hand on his revolver, demanding to know why his fruit contract had been taken away from him.

The situation looked unpleasant, for Brown was unarmed, and Garcia, a notably bad character, obviously meant business. He managed, however, to smooth the question over, assuring Garcia that he would receive work the following day. The man was apparently satisfied, so Brown left the camp to mount his mule, which was being led towards him. As he threw his leg over the saddle, the sound of six successive revolver shots cracked through the air, followed by heart-rending groans that gradually died away.

Having always prided himself on the discipline of his camp, he did a most foolish thing, being still unarmed, and returned to ascertain the cause of the disturbance.

The camp was apparently deserted, and only the body of a Syrian merchant could be seen hanging over one of the verandahs. He continued to ride on into the open clearing, when he heard hurried footsteps behind him. He looked round to see the barrel of Garcia's revolver within a foot of his head. Quick as lightning, realising that not a moment was

to be lost, he struck Garcia's arm with his full strength, and as he did so Garcia fired six times, one bullet grazing his arm, another his back, another the heel of his boot, while the remainder fortunately went wide-an unpleasant moment! He spurred his mule forward in the endeavour to make the house and obtain his revolver. Garcia's brother, who was standing about twenty-five yards away, fired another six shots in his direction, two of which grazed the mule. He reached the house, grabbed his revolver, and returned to the fray. Alas! to find that both Garcia and his brother had made for the jungle, where there would be little hope of an immediate capture.

It was not until two months later that the fugitives were brought to justice, and Garcia shot while trying to escape. Since the episode, Brown's life has been continually threatened by the infuriated relatives of the murderers, who maintain that he was responsible for Garcia's death.

Other stories of this description could be related, but many would have far more wretched endings.

Honduras is a land of tragedies, interminable in their daily occurrence.

SOME months ago the famous Mr William Randolph Hearst was presented by the Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, Ga., with the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws. It was in itself not an earth-shaking earth shaking event. Though it may have seemed of some importance to Atlanta, Ga., and to Mr Hearst, it left the poor broken fabric of antiquated Europe calm and unaffected. The degree was conferred upon the great man, we are told, with this simple "accolade": "William Randolph Hearst, counsellor of millions, lover of America, exponent of a perpetual peace entente among the Englishspeaking peoples of the world." There are other accolades which he might have received. He might have been acclaimed as Anglorum mastix or Scourge of the English. He might have received such credit as belongs to one whose careless handling of the facts in the war was so flagrant that he and his papers were not permitted to receive telegrams or letters from Europe. For two years he lay under the disgrace of a strict boycott. Since those days he seems to have undergone a sudden conversion. He now looks upon England with a kind of tolerance. The war has taught

him a few obvious lessons. He has discovered that it would be a great achievement to abolish abolish "the utterly uncivilised and wholly savage institution of war." And being a practical man, with a vast respect for large circulations, he asked himself at once how best he should approach this abolition. The answer came swiftly to him: "The time is ripe," said he to himself and to the world, "to advocate the co-operation of the Englishspeaking peoples of the world to maintain peace." So he dreams of an alliance which would bind together the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The alliance would not be offensive or entangling, but it would, so thinks Mr Hearst, ensure the peace of the whole world.

We have not much faith in sudden conversions; we do not estimate very highly the power of the press; and we set the same value upon Mr Hearst's Baccalaureate Address as we set upon the "editorials which are said to give counsel to millions. In the very act to propose an equal alliance, he cannot forget his ancient hostility, and lest Great Britain should be overjoyed at his

condescension he puts her in her place. He complains that England has not yet realised! how much more powerful and more important a nation is the United States than she herself. What he means by powerful and important we do not know. Neither her power nor her importance was evident in the war, by which she gained nothing except money 1 Now money is not a source in itself of power or importance All the wealth of Persia availed nothing against the heroism of Athens. And the United States and Mr Hearst must learn the value of modesty and of the things of the mind before they make their power and import ance effective. Meanwhile, we wonder that Mr Hearst or the United States think it worth their while even to think of an alliance with the poor effete thing called England, which, "with her coal and her commerce diminished," to use Mr Hearst's amiable words, "her people partly impoverished and unemployed, would soon go the way of Holland if it were not for the British Empire." We can assure him that alliances, defensive and disentangled, are not based upon a contempt so little justified and so ill-concealed as this. But doubtless by this time Mr Hearst's proposal is docketed and put away in the archives of Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, Ga., and there's an end of it. As for Mr Hearst himself, he is still living in the land that Dickens saw nearly a century ago; he is but a

modern Hannibal Chollop, and his home is in the setting sun.

Of the many hostilities which we expect from America, we prefer the hostility of Big Bill Thompson. There is something engaging in Big Bill. He, at any rate, is not solemn like Mr Hearst. He doesn't lecture us upon our falling power and importance. He is content to tie a bladder on the end of a string and belabour any Englishman that comes within his reach. He makes a vast deal of noise, and does nobody any harm. He gallantly sustains the ancient feud against the King of England. He has even gone so far as to start a war chest to "keep King George on the other side of the ocean." Whether he thinks that he still has to do with George III. is not clear. It is clear that King George is Big Bill's enemy, and it matters not much to him or to us if the King of his aversion be the third or the fifth of his name. Now, what we like best about Bill Thompson, Chicago's own Mayor, is that, without knowing it, he too, like Mr Hearst, has stepped straight out of the pages of 'Martin Chuzzlewit.' We say without knowing it," because we are sure that Big Bill has never defiled his 100 per cent American mind by the reading of Charles Dickens, a mere Englishman, not to be discussed in the free air of Chicago. But the truth is that Bill Thompson is none other than General Choke, whom Dickens drew nearly a hundred years ago. We on this side the Atlantic