The English page is a translation of the French one. The typography
is super-extra primitive--in this quality it has not its equal
anywhere. There is no proof-reader now; he is dead.
"Where do they get matter to fill up a page in this little island
lost in the wastes of the Indian Ocean? Oh, Madagascar. They
discuss Madagascar and France. That is the bulk. Then they chock
up the rest with advice to the Government. Also, slurs upon the
English administration. The papers are all owned and edited by
creoles--French.
"The language of the country is French. Everybody speaks it--has
to. You have to know French particularly mongrel French, the patois
spoken by Tom, Dick, and Harry of the multiform complexions--or you
can't get along.
"This was a flourishing country in former days, for it made then and
still makes the best sugar in the world; but first the Suez Canal severed
it from the world and left it out in the cold and next the beetroot sugar
helped by bounties, captured the European markets. Sugar is the life of
Mauritius, and it is losing its grip. Its downward course was checked by
the depreciation of the rupee--for the planter pays wages in rupees but
sells his crop for gold--and the insurrection in Cuba and paralyzation of
the sugar industry there have given our prices here a life-saving lift;
but the outlook has nothing permanently favorable about it.
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