Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1885 — A PARADISE FOR LAZY MEN. [ARTICLE]

A PARADISE FOR LAZY MEN.

Where the People Are Born Tired and Can live on 75 Cents a Week. Key West has, without exception, the finest climate in the United States. There is always a breeze and rarely a gale, and you may wear a straw hat with propriety every day in the year. It is solely due to the monumental sluggishness of the population that Key West is almost unknown to the tourist and health-seeker. Key West is reached by . steamers from New York, from New Orleans, and by a mail steamer from Tampa Bay. The Key has about as much shape as a camel, but in a general way lies east and west, and contains about six square miles. It is as flat as a pan-cake, the highest point being sixteen feet above mean sea level. To the casual visitor it looks as though the sea, particularly in a storm, would submerge this insignificant rise ; but it is a matter of record that it never has. The city proper covers the western end of the Key. It is densely settled, and about as un-American as possible, bearing a strong resemblance to a West Indian town. The houses are of wood, plainly built, and, with a few exceptions, painted white. There are, I think, only three brick buildings, certainly not more than six. Piazzas abound, and occasionally some latticework is seen, but there is no attempt at decoration or display. Many of the business houses have no signs, and there is a general air of don’t-care whelher-I-sell-or-not about the shops. The houses are of all sizes, jumbled up in the oddest way, and anywhere but on the line of the street. The interior of each block is filled up with onestory shanties, access to which is had by going up alleys, through fences, or over somebody else’s yard. The population being 14,000, land is precious. Lots are divided and subdivided, and houses built in yards and gardens are wedged in here, there and everywhere, facing sixteen ways for Sunday. Where there is no room for a house they build a stable or pig-pen, and sprinkle Chickens around in the corners. The richest people do not disdain to thus add from $3 to $0 a month to their income, although it destroys their privacy and disfigures their grounds. The streets are of good width, tolerably straight, and passably clean. The roadway is coral rock. There is no soil. What passes for soil is merely triturated coral, wonderfully rich in phosphates, and making an excellent fertilizer, but, by itself, deficient in fat. To garden you must use a pick instead of a hoe. No vegetables are raised on the key, and the vegetation is confined mainly to cocoanut trees. Here and there you will find a pine or an oleander, a star of India, or a royal poinciana; but in the main there is a criminal lack of foliage. The nature of the population is thus shown. The Key has been settled for fifty years; every tropical or semi-tropical tree, shrub, or flower known to pan lias but to be planted to grow, and the city is bare, hot, and verdureless. The white houses, without a vine or climbing flower, the dazzling streets, without a tree, anjl with no sidewalks—dusty and glaring wherever you look—it is enough to make you wish for a hurricane to stir the city’s blood. Yet, to the student of sociology, tlia explanation is plain. The population is to blame, and the climate makes the population. ~~ ' The colored folk drive the drays and hacks, act as porters and stevedors, and do the bulk of the heavy sitting around. Everybody takes a turn at the latter work, however, and the whole community offers to the historian the most striking example of people born tired. It is an edifying spectacle to Northern eyes to see a native of Ivev West going on an errand or doing a piece of work. Usually he moves like a snail. If you are not particular you can live for 75 cents a week. A stick of sugar-cane costs only three cents, bananas and oranges can be hooked from the auctioneers} hominy is cheap, and a string of fish can be caught from any wharf. For a shelter there is little need, except to keep off the rain, and it needs not a house to do that. What a country for a tramp! What a climate for the poor! —Letter from Key West.