Page:Travel letters from New Zealand, Australia and Africa (1913).djvu/271

 287689, 159867, 829217," etc., followed by two dozen or more railways represented in the city. Such a list would take up as much space as the baseball scores We have cantaloupes every day at the hotel, and they are surprisingly good. The varieties are new to us. We also have roasting-ears, and the proprietor tells me they cost six to eight cents a dozen, in quantities Four of the guests at this hotel we knew as passengers on the "Anchises." Warned by the example of Australia, South Africa has prohibited the importation of rabbits, except that they are permitted in one small island near the coast The fire department made an exhibition run today to amuse the sailors from the warship "New Zealand," a favorite trick in all American country towns. The apparatus here is motor-driven, new, and of the best All the street and railway laborers, and laborers generally, are negroes, and they receive an average of $22 a month. A negro laborer in the United States receives more than twice that. The Georgia man I met on Sunday says the South-African negroes are no better laborers than the negroes of the South. If the South-African government should decide that the prosperity of the country depended upon the negroes working for a shilling a day, such a law would be passed, without regard to the Rights of Man. Chinese labor was tried in the Johannesburg mines, and at one time there were more than 50,000 Chinese in the country. The Chinese gradually demanded more wages, and as a result they were ordered to leave South Africa, a fate which is now overtaking the Hindus. Many employers of labor favor inviting the Chinese to come back.