Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 78, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1899 — Some Facts Concerning Cuba and Her People. [ARTICLE]

Some Facts Concerning Cuba and Her People.

The Island of Cuba lies 130 miles from the coast of Florida. It is 760 miles long and is from thirty to 150 „ miles in widthIt is about the same size as Pennsylvania. Its surface consists mostly of undulating and well-watered plains covered with forests and very fertile plantations. It has many mountain chains. It has 250 small short rivers. Here they would be called creeks. No other island of its size has so j many good natural harbors. There are 220 of them. The population of Cuba by the last: census was 1,631,000. Of this number 1,111,000 were whites and 520,000 were negroes. Again, 1,250,000 of this number are natives of Cuba; 300,000 are Spaniards (office holding class) and 81.000 other nationalities. There are over 1,200 public and private schools, besides an institution of secondary instruction in each province, and a university in Havana. Education is compulsory in name only. Yet in face of all this only thirty-five per cent of the whites and twelve per cetffr of the colored people can read and write. Only one-tenth of the land in Cuba is under cultivation. Much of it is unexplored. Cuba has 1,000 miles of railroad, 2,204 miles of telegraph wires, and 157 offices. She has 1,200 sugar planations, 5,000 tobacco plantations and 160 coflfee plantations. She had 5,000 grazing farms, 17,000 small farms and 95,000 depots and factories. She numbered twenty two cities and towns and 204 villiages. One-third of all the inhabitants on the island live in seven of her chief cities. The annual income of her inhabitants was estimated at SBO,000,000 and the taxes levied upon them for all purposes footed up to the enormous total of $33,000,000 for the year. Just think of it. In industries, the island has four distinct sections. In the extreme west grows tobacco and fruits, in the north central the raising of sugar cane and extracting sugar therefrom is the industry. Puerto Principe is devoted to cattle raising, and Santiago de Cuba to mining and growing coffee and fruit. Besides the products named Cuban soil yields bananas, pine apples, iron ore,' maganese, cedar and mahogany.

The climate of Cuba has been slandered. The highest recorded temperature for many years was 104 degrees. The mean temperature of Havana is seventy-seven degrees, for August eighty eight, and for December sixty-five degrees. The average annual rain-fall is forty-five inches. Even during the rainy season the sun shines all day, long, except for an occasional hour, when the rain comes down in floods. The people of Cuba are simple, amiable and hospitable folk. The Cuban is not as tall as an American and the white Cuban is not strongly built. His eyes and his hair are coal black and his face is full of animation. He is clean and tidy about his person, though his house may be far otherwise. His clothing, if he is of the better class, is of the finest linen. He creases his trousers at the sides, has no hip pocket in them, and holds them up with a belt. He wears a Panama hat, worth anywhere from $2 to $25. The Cuban senorita is generally pretty, has black eyes with sweeping lashes, a small mouth with cherry-red lips and perfect teeth. Her complexion is olive, tinged with a glow of pink. She talks charmingly and her features are full of expression. She is not tall,

as a rule, and her hands and feet are usually small. She is apt to marry at-fifteen to seventeen, have a large family by the time she is thirty, and in later years grow portly. She makes a true and devoted wife. The humbler women of Cuba dress in the gayest colors and are very fond of jewelry. The lowly Cuban man wears tattered and unclean clothing, and his shirt is open half way down his breast

The Cuban, like the Spaniard, is fond of cock-fights and bullfights. He is a procrastinator. There is no hustle in him. If he is a business man he goes leisurely to his office at nine in the morning, returns home at eleven for breakfast, takes a short sleep, and | returns to his office at one or two o’clock, remaining there not later than four. Not a heavy day’s exertion. But then there is always “manana” tomorrow. The better homes of Cuban cities are all built of stone or cement around a courtyard, which contains flowers and often a fountain. They are generally onestory houses. They have great doors and windows, without glass, but these are protected by iron gratings to insure fresh air. No carpets are used in Cuban - homes because the vermin are so prolific. The furniture is not upholstered for the same reason. Wicker and cane furniture predominates. The floors are usually of hard wood or mosaic work. On the street, at his office, or wherever you meet him, the Cuban is the pink of politeness. He always raises his hat'to you and asks for the health of your family, even if he has never seen them. Whenever a lady leaves the room, even if it is a public case, Cuban gentlemen all rise to their feet. Her escort bows in recognition. All Cuban families possessed of any means eat their meals in courses. The meals always terminate with coffee and cigars. The ladies smoke, too. Everybody between the ages of eight and eighty, smokes in Cuba. The women of the island smoke more than the men. The humble natives carry their burdens on their heads, balancing a bucket of water as easily as a bundle of wood. A Cuban peasant girl, thus laden, swings jauntily along, puffing her five-inch cigar as she goes. Wilber Tharp.