Sugar        300,000,000 lbs.     —­     620,000,000 lbs. 
Molasses     125,000,000  "       —­     220,000,000  "
Leaf Tobacco   6,000,000  "       —­      10,000,000  "
Coffee        30,000,000  "       —­      19,000,000  "

The sugar manufactories during that time had also increased from eight hundred to upwards of sixteen hundred.  Can any one calmly compare this marvellous progression of Cuba with the equally astounding retrogression of our Antilles, and fail to come to the irresistible conclusion that the prosperity of the one is intimately connected with the distress of the other.

While stating the annual produce of tobacco, I should observe that upwards of 180,000,000 of cigars, and nearly 2,000,000 boxes of cigarettes, were exported in 1852, independent of the tobacco-leaf before mentioned.  Professor J.F.W.  Johnston, in that curious and able work entitled Chemistry of Common Life, styles tobacco “the first subject in the vegetable kingdom in the power of its service to man,”—­some of my lady friends, I fear, will not approve of this opinion,—­and he further asserts that 4,500,000,000 lbs. thereof are annually dispersed throughout the earth, which, at twopence the pound, would realize the enormous sum of 37,000,000l.

If smoking may be called the popular enjoyment of the island, billiards and dominoes may be called the popular games, and the lottery the popular excitement.  There are generally fifteen ordinary lotteries, and two extraordinary, every year.  The ordinary consist of 32,000l. paid, and 24,000l. thereof as prizes.  There are 238 prizes, the highest being 600l., and the lowest 40l.  The extraordinary consist of 54,400l. paid, of which 40,800l. are drawn as prizes.  There are 206 prizes, the highest of which is 20,000l., and the lowest 40l.; from which it will appear, according to Cocker, that the sums drawn annually as prizes are very nearly 150,000l. less than the sums paid.  Pretty pickings for Government!  As may naturally be supposed, the excitement produced by this constitutional gambling—­which has its nearest counterpart in our own Stock Exchange—­is quite intense; and as the time for drawing approaches, people may be seen in all the cafes and public places, hawking and auctioning the billets at premium, like so many Barnums with Jenny Lind tickets.  One curious feature in the lotteries here is the interest the niggers take in them.  To understand this, I must explain to you that the coloured population are composed of various African tribes, and each tribe keeps comparatively separate from the others; they then form a kind of club among their own tribe, for the purpose of purchasing the freedom of some of their enslaved brethren, who, I believe, receive assistance in proportion as they contribute to the funds, and bear such a character as shall interpose no obstacle to their ransom being permitted.  A portion of their funds is frequently employed in the purchase of lottery-tickets, and a deep spirit of gambling is the natural consequence; for though the stake entered is dollars, the prize, if won, is freedom.  These lotteries date back to 1812; and if they have always been kept up as before explained, they must have contributed something like ten millions sterling to the Government during their forty years’ working.