Drug stores that sell liquor get short shrift in Seattle since the mayor adopted a policy of " smash 'em up." Washington went dry January 1. The stores shown on this page are said to have been owned by J. J. Kelley. Damage estimated in excess of $10,000 was wrought by the official wrecking crew. Our old friend Christopher Columbus first put this hemisphere on the map when he unfurled the Spanish flag on San Salvador, over four hundred years ago. The larger islands of Cuba, Hayti, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, and others, were soon afterwards discovered, and, being fertile, immigration from Europe poured into them. For two hundred years European powers were periodically fighting for control of these wealthy islands, and, with the exception of Barbados, all of them have changed flags several times. The exploits of Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, Raleigh, Rodney, Morgan, and others are familiar to readers of English history, and their names are inseparably associated with the West Indies and the Spanish main. Nearly three hundred years ago slaves were brought over from Africa to work on the sugar estates, and for over two hundred years the West Indies was a full-grown member of the commercial world, while Uncle Sam was yet in swaddling clothes. The islands were the Mecca of the brave and adventurous of Europe, and also the headquarters of an array of buccaneers and pirates, who preyed with great profit upon the marine commerce of the different nations. In those days Jamaica was the brightest jewel in the English colonial crown, and its capital one of the richest and wickedest cities of the world. Thousands of English families owned sugar estates among the various islands *Mr. Renwick makes periodical visits to the West Indies in the interests of Parke, Davis & Co. and lived with a prodigality unknown to-day in those parts. This prosperity continued until 1832, when Great Britain abolished slavery in all its possessions and the West Indian negro became a free man and was gradually enfranchised. At the same time there was instituted a degree of compulsory education, with the result that to-day, after three or four generations of good schooling, the colored gentleman of Jamaica, Trinidad, or Barbados, or any other island under British rule, is a highly civilized and interesting individual, and has nothing much in common with his American brothers. EXTREME ADVERSITY. For fifty years or more after the emancipation act the West Indies passed through a period of extreme adversity. A planter could not make money without slave labor and hundreds of families went back to England, letting their magnificent estates go to rack and ruin. One of the larger islands, before 1832, had a population of nearly 100,000 whites, with many thousand prosperous estates. Twenty years afterward there were about 15,000 whites and only a few hundred working properties. After a few decades of business despondency a period of reconstruction set in, and the past twenty-five years has seen a gradually increasing prosperity. I have often heard American tourists say they hoped that they would not become sick, being so far away from medical skill. The fact is that there are probably as good doctors |