My
brother George was returned by an enormous majority.
The most original electioneering poster I ever saw was in Capetown in
March, 1914. It was an admirably got-up enlargement of a funeral card,
with a deep black border, adorned with a realistic picture of a
hearse, and was worded "Unionist Opposition dead. Government dying.
Electors of the Liesbeck Division drive your big nails into the coffin
by voting for Tom Maginess on Saturday." Whether it was due to this
novel form of electioneering or not, I cannot say, but Maginess won
the seat by two thousand votes. I still have a copy of that poster.
Neither Londonderry nor Capetown are in Jamaica, but oddly enough,
Middlesex is, for the island is divided into three counties, Cornwall,
Middlesex, and Surrey. The local geography is a little confusing, for
it is a surprise to find (in Jamaica at all events) that Westmoreland
is in Cornwall, and Manchester in Middlesex.
Kingston owes its position as capital to the misfortunes of its two
neighbours, Port Royal and Spanish Town. When Port Royal was totally
destroyed by an earthquake in 1692, the few survivors crossed the bay
and founded a new town on the sandy Liguanea plain. Owing to its
splendid harbour, Kingston soon became a place of great importance,
though the seat of Government remained in sleepy Spanish Town, but the
latter lying inland, and close to the swamps of the Rio Cobre, was so
persistently unhealthy that in 1870 the Government was transferred to
Kingston.
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