getting around on foot
The Revd John Radcliffe, Presbyterian minister, came to Jamaica in 1848, and remained for the rest of his life - in 1889 the Gleaner highlighted a lecture he gave, in which he did say something of the state of Kingston streets when he first saw them:
Daily Gleaner, August 22, 1889
editorial re Radcliffe lecture
editorial re Radcliffe lecture
". . . . The streets of 1848 were mere water courses or gullies, with deep holes in them occasionally filled with stable manure and were dangerous to the life or limb of any pedestrian. Mr. Radcliffe says that his general impressions of the Kingston of those days may be summed up in the refrain "Bogs, dogs, and beer bottles."
No one willingly walked abroad and one lady of Mr. Radcliffe's congregation, had never been to the Race Course in her life. In travelling into the interior the roads were so bad that travellers were necessitated to take coils of rope with them in case a spring should break. But the roads, were not so bad as Kingston Streets." |