| THE REAL CUBAN 8 O By Albert Gardner Robinson. O ooooooooooooooooooooocoooo THE people of Cuba, like those of the Philippine Islands and the United States, are a com posite race. The early years Of Spanish occupation saw Spanish iblood commingled with that of the so called "Indians" whom the discover ers of the island found in possession. (Later Spanish settlement established lines of distinct Spanish blood, and produced also a further commingling in varying proportions with the na- Itive blood. In later years a measure of immigration followed from the im mediate surroundings. The French man and the mixed French came from Hayti and San Domingo. The mixed Spanish came from Mexico and North ern South America. Slave trade brought the African negro, and the irn- i A COMMON TYPE OF CUBAN COUNTRY HOME. portation of coolie labor brought the Chinese. The color line is far less definite than it is in the United States. The census of 1809 gives the following de termination: White Cubans, 910,209; •white aliens. including Spanish, French, English, German and Ameri can, 142.108; negroes, 234,638; mulat toes, 270,805; Chinese, 14,857. Com pared with earlier census returns the negro and the Chinaman show a marked reduction. The returns of 1802 give: Negroes, 422,000; Chinese, 34.000. Somewhere in this somewhat hetero geneous lot there is the type which may be rightly called the Real Cuban, the Cuban race type. I place this type, and I believe with entire cor rectness, on the soil. He is the peas -OUBAN COUNTRY CHURCH, PROVINCE OF PUERTO PRINCIPE. ant, the farmer, el hijo del cam po (the sou of the country, as distinct from the man of the city and town). He is the man who is locally known as the guajiro (wah-hee-ro). Taken Irroadly, this class will include white, black and mulatto, though the great er numoer are white. Iu Cuba the term "white" has a latitude which is not recognized in the Anglo-Saxon race. The swarthy Spaniard may owe the darkness of his skin to some old drops of brownish blood from the long years of Moorish occupation of the peninsula. Numerically the guajiros constitute probnbly some sixty or seventy per cent, of the people of Cuba. At the present time an exact classification is impossible. The processes of war de stroyed the homes of many of the class, and they have been forced to seek such employment as might be open to them. This they have done •with a patient aud submissive endur ance which is one of their chief char acteristics. Gradually, as best they cau, they seek to pick up the threads of the old life, to return to the spot of the old home to build anew the sim- ] pie structure and to resume the old occupations. The type of dwelling occupied by the guajiro is misleading to those who are unfamiliar with the world's peas aut and pioneer life. It impresses such as a hovel which can only be the lionie of poverty, unthrift aud social degradation. So does the rock aud mud hut of the South African veldt, the humpy of the bush settler of Aus tralia. the nipa hut of the Filipino, the dugout of the Western pioneer, aud the log cabin of the mountaineer. Yet each uses for his dwelling that mate rial. whether it be earth, stone, brick, "wood, bamboo, or palm, which is most readily and economically available for 'his purpose. The uipa hut of the Fil ipino and the log cabin of the moun taineer may be and often are quaint and picturesque. The cabin of the Cubau guajiro seldom suggests any thing other than the crude and the primitive. Yet, like the corresponding liomes of other lands, the voof thatch may shelter a very worthy man, a good husband and father, a hospitable ■host according to his means. The .rudeness of these houses is uo true in- dex of poverty. Wealth the Cuban peasant does not have, yet his little industry will and does give hith as large a percentage of what he wants and needs as that which falls to the lot of many who would be disposed to pity him. A hut, a few acres of land, a few farming tools and an ox make him well to do. Two oxen and a horse will number him among the af fluent. The guajiro is usually a small farm er. He cultivates for his own needs with such surplus as he can for sale or exchange to gratify such desires or ambitions as he may have for him self or his family. His life calls for very little. He needs no store of fuel for a bitter winter; he needs no over coats, no shoes for his children, no buggy in which to drive to town; he needs no barns of hay and grain to feed his cattle through a long winter. Cotton and calico will clothe the fam ily, and the women of the household will braid a straw hat that Is best suited for the climate. Carpets would lie a nuisance ami a homo for fleas. Ln all that, the life is primitive lu the' extreme. As a rule, the guajiro is illiterate, and satisfied to be so. The outside world interests him little and troubles him less. School facilities have not been abundant uuder the Spanish regime, and there is some question of his enthusiasm over the Introduction of school systems under the American control of Cuban affairs. Newspapers reach his vicinity, and there is always some one who cau and does read aloud for the edification of the community. All this, the rude home, the narrow life, the illiteracy, is not to lie unchar itably charged against the gunjiro to his discredit. America's special interest iu this group at the present time Is. or should be, ln Its place in that political future of the island in which America Is so deeply concerned, and for which she has assumed such important responsi bility. To some extent the guajiro took part in the Cuban insurrection. Yet It is doubtful if anything more than a small percentage took any ac tive part in the operations. The great majority of the original followers of the instigators of the revolt of 1800, like those who supported the earlier Ten Years' War, were a less responsi ble element, consisting of plantation Held hands. The raids of Gomez and Maceo, westward from the home of the insurrection in Santiago province, demoralized and, in large measure, destroyed the productive activities of the central and western provinces. Some of the small peasant farmers, roused by the euthusiasm of the move ment, joined the tlying raiders and be came its most effective fighters. Many remained passive, and constituted the class known ns the pacificos, the peaceful, the non-combatants. Some of these materially aided fhe insur gents with such as they had to give, though unwilling to take active part. There were few, whether they were active or passive, who did not lose their little all. lusurgents and Span iards seized their crops, their cattle and their poultry for"the needs of the army." Often their homes were burned, sometimes in wanton destruc SUGAR MAKING IN PORTO RICO. —Tasting the freshly out sugaireane. 2.—-Carrying sugarcane to the mill. 3.—Modern methods for quickly h andllng a big crop. 4.—A typical ap proach to tlio house of a rich Porto Ricao, —Vwm Harper'a Wrefcto tlon, sometimes In alleged punishment for their attitude. From this class there came the large percentage of the unfortunate reconcentrados. Upon . j * A OUAJIBO HOME. this dnsa the burdens of destructive warfare have fallen most heavily. Ruined planters may be numbered by scores. Ruined guajiros count up Into the hundreds of thousands. The few hundred of great planters In C jba are an essential feature In the Island's development. They are the employers of thousands of laborers. Their rights and their privileges are an important consideration in all Cu ban aflfutrs. Without them, our sugar would be a costly article, and none can say what Cuba would be. Yet equally if not more carefully to be considered in Cuba's political future. Is Cuba's sturdy and pea eable peasantry. The guajlro is a peaceable man. tractable, easily governed, asking nothing save justice and fair taxation from his rulers. He is no discontented mis chief maker. His greatest desire is to live In quiet, cultivating his little farm, chatting with his neighbors, disturbing none and desiring that none disturb him. His is no "strenuous life," and advocates of that sort of thing may regard his life as contemp tible, yet it Is the life of the majority of the world's population. In the politics of the time this man has little place and his voice is little heard. He Is probably the man wlio. In days to come, will determine what fashion of government Cuba shall have, but he Is not yet ready for such deflnito determination, and he tigures but little if at all in the plans and op erations of political loaders. He now has no political organization, though such of bis type as cast their votes in the recent election doubtless voted with the Cuban National party. He Is tho backbone of Cuba, and Americans, In their consideration of the island and Its political and social needs, should glvo due place to the gMajlro, the sturdy, patient, tractable, peaceable, plodding majority. New York Independent. Snap Shot From China. The clash of the eastern and west ern military methods in China during the past year has brought many strange things into the public eye. — I V" ORIENTAL CAVALRYMAN. None of them, perhaps, is more amus ing, from the western point of view, than thu camel cavalryman shown In the accompanying picture. The rider is a Sepoy of the Twenty-sixth Balu chistan Regiment—a British East In dian soldier—and his steed Is a part of the loot taken at Fatacliu. The average value of the annual raw silk exports from Syria may be put at $5,000,000. SUBMARINE PETROLEUM. Project Afloat to Sink Oil Well* la tho Gulf. Texas capitalists are now interested In a company which will drill for oil In the Gulf of Mexico. It has been discovered that a considerable oil tleld underlies the Gulf a few miles outside of Sa'bine Pass. It Is known as the "oil pool," and the surface of the water there is perpetually smooth from petroleum which floats up from tho bottom. The proposition now is to sink pipes from the surface, which, after pene trating the bottom, will be sunk far enough to tap the oil supposed to ex ist in large quantities in subterranean caves far beneath the surface of the Gulf. Preserving Milk by Charcoal. A rather unusual meiuod of pre serving milk has recently been brought to public attention in England, the chief feature of which Is the use of charcoal. It is asserted that charcoal, if immersed in milk, wlil absorb all the impurities resulting from the chemical changes which are constant ly taking place. This simple treat- CV,p fi NOVEL 11 II.K PBESEBVATIVH. moot, It is asserted, will preserve milk it. a sweetened condition for seventy tire hours in all climates. In applying the principle for household use the charcoal la suspended in the bowls or pitchers used after the manner illus trated. The bolder consists of a tine wire gauze receptacle, with thhi metal arms attached for its suspension. New charcoal has to be used on each occasion. As applied to the dairy man's needs, the charcoal is contained in two perforated metal cases, one in the bottom of the churn, or can. and one attached to the inshle of the lid. Kvolutlon of tb« Horse. Br. Gidley, of the American Museum of Natural History, of New York City, re<*nrly spent some time in this city studying the type specimens of fossil horses preserved in the museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences. These specimens were described years IMS | EPCCHfc' njCCtMt PUQCENt fttCCHT | EVOLUTION OF THE HOUSE'S EOOT. ago by the famous comparative anato mist. Dr. Joseph Leidy. The study of fossil and recent horses Is one of the most interesting and convincing of evolutionary theories. In Eocene times the ancestor of the modern horse had four toes, so he could run over the marshes. Later, in Miocene times he lost one toe from disuse. Pliocene times saw only the central toe predom inating, when in the modern horse the extra toes do not penetrate tho skin, and are only recognized anatomically as tho splint bones.—Philadelphia Rec ord. An Australian Snapshot. This picture is produced from a photograph taken at Parramatta, a flat, hot, and sleepy town, a sail of an hour and a half from Sydney, Austra lia, up the Parramatta Kiver. Messrs. Adam and Eve are both enterprising business men, and appreciate the ad vertising value of the tirtn name. It is Interesting to note that, as drapers, Adam and Eve are in a very appropri ate business.—Profitable Advertising. The owners of automobiles in Ohio constitute a new force in the good roads movement. There is a plan un der way for the building of a boule vard from one end of the State to the other, touching the cities and largest towns. SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. When the sun is pouring down its rays upon the ocean at noon-day none of them penetrate to a depth of over 200 feet. Could a diver descend to that depth he would find himsolf shrouded in darkness as profound as though he were immersed in a sea of ink. One of the difficulties is operating the arc light is the necessary renewal of the carbonrods. A substitute for tiiem has lately been invented, which consists of two aluminum arms point ed with platinum. The arms are L shaped, and are operated by a simple pendulum arrangement, which, with the arms themselves, is enclosed with in a vacuum bulb. The lamp is to be used in a horizontal position and casts no shadow. It is claimed that there will be no wear of the incandescent parts. The British Museum has recently received a specimen of the rarely seen "whale-headed stork," which was first found on the Whits Nile in 1849, and which until now had been sup posed to be confined to that locality. The specimen referred to was shot on the north shore of Lake Victoria. It Is described as a "distinctly weir.-l looking bird, having a gaunt, gray body, long legs, and a head surmount ed by a little curled tuft and a scowl ing expression of the eyes." But its most remarkable peculiarity is its enormous bill, which is shaped like the head of a whale. An interesting theory has been ad vanced to account for the phenomena of the Aurora Borealis, which takes into account the most recent scientific contributions of our knowledge of the composition of matter. This theory attributes the remarkable play of lights to be due to streams of Thomp son's recently-discovered corpuscles which are supposed to be emitted from the sun. As these approach the magnetic field of the earth says the Electrical Review, they are deflected toward the poles, and when they final ly reach a level of the air of the prop er density they give rise to light phe nomenon similar to those obtained with cathode rays in vacuum tube 3. In the Interstate park, near Tay lor's Falls, Minnesota, has been dis covered a singular group of "giants' kettles," or pot-holes, covering an area of two or three acres and ranging in diameter from less than a foot to 25 feet, and in depth from one foot to 84 feet. They have been bored in ex ceedingly hard rock, and in many cases they are like wells in shape, the ratio of width to depth varying from one to five up to one, to seven. Mr. Warren Upham ascribes their ori gin to torrents falling through glacial 'moulins" at the time when the north ern territory of the United oiates was buried under ice. As with similar pot holes elsewhere, rounded boulders are occasionally found at the bottom of the cavities. The continued experiments of Pror. F. E. Nipher, of St. Louis, Mo., with 'positive photography," have produced some very interesting results. He says that the plates may be separately wrapped in black paper at nisht, or in a dark room, and all the remaining work can be done in the light. A plate Is taken from its wrapper in the light and placed in the slida holder, and an exposure—a long one—ls made. After exposure the plate is taken out in the light again, and placed in the developing bath, and the picture is developed, and may be fixed in the light The result is a positive. Fine pictures are thus obtained. While it is desirable to shield the plate from the light as much as possible during the changes, yet. Prof. Nipher says, all of the operations may be carried on without any dark-room conven iences that may not be secured even in the open fields. How to Acquire Psychic Fore*.. Mystics who acquire tremendous psychic force do not oat meat at all, but live on fruits, vegetables, roots, cereals and one or two eggs a day. They have perfect health and livr to be very old, many passing the cen tury mark. Would you enjoy the ideal breakfast? Asparagus, scrambled eggs, dry toast and a qup of weak tea. The ideal luncheon? A cold tomato ind three leaves of lettuce, with pep per and salt. The ideal dinner? Fresh peas, boiled onions, a half portion of fish, fried hominy and water from the spring. Omit bread. No good! Bread is the mother, father and remotest an cestor of dyspepsia. J. Pierpont Mor gan is a man of tremendous vital force and nearly a giant in staature as well as intellect. At a:i official ban quet given in his honor in London the other night all that he ate was a small piece of fish and two soft-boiled eggs, and his drink was a glass of wa ter. He is hunting for psychic force! -New York Press. Mnnd Ilowc on Docking* Maud Howe, speaking of the injury done to horses by the barbarous aud foolish fashion of docking, says:"This fact is so well recognized by experts that there is not one cavalry regiment in the who!? of Europe or America in which the docking of the t'riil is permitted, and in polo playing the long-tailed ponies dre much the clever est in turning and shifting their course, because they have the tails with which they were born." France probably has the smallest conscript on record. Emile Mayot. of I Cunel in the canton of Montfaucon measures 3 feet 9 1-2 inches in his stocking feet and weighs 42 pounds. He was acoepted. THE GREAT DESTROYER SOME STARTLINC FACTS ABOUT THE VICE OF INTEMPERANCE. Practical Temperance Work—Suggestions Made at the New Zealand Woman's Christian Temperance Union Conven tion—Warning Against American Plan Less platform speaking and house-to house canvassing, and more work of a practical nature, were among the sugges tions offered at the sixteenth annual con vention of the New Zealand Woman's Christian Temperance Union, held in Wellington recently. One of the speakers said, among other things: "We must make our city life different from what it is in America if we want to make prohibition a possibility. We can do it if we now. If we do not be gin now, we shall find the same results ensue as in America. The main tenden cies of city Hfe are the same all the world over. There is. therefore, a plain dutv cast upon us. If we wish to aid in this work of temperance reform we must be come earnest advocates of, and, so far as lies in our power, earnest workers for, municipal and educational reform. "It cannot now be claimed for our wom en that they have no voice in municipal affairs, because the recent extension of the franchise is wide enough to take in most if not all of us. Wc can make our influence felt, if we will, at every local election in the colony, and in this way we can be sure that the management of our cities and towns will materially help in our work of temperance reform. Let me try to indicate how it can be made to help. We want to make the homes of our people attractive enough to rival the public house. We need, then, in the first place, as much open space about all the houses as can be procured. That is physiologi cally necessary for the strengthening of botn "iind and bodv of the dwellers in the towns. And, besides, we want room for gardens everywhere, for they afford not only pleasure to the sight, and so add to the comfort of home, but they serve to occupy the leisure time of the fathers and sons, who might be tempted, if unoccu pied, to stroll to the nearest street corner to meet companions and friends and per haus to have a drink together. "We must endeavor to extend the bene fits to city life as far as possible, in or der that the surplus folk from the crowd ed streets may be induced to move a little further out, where they may live in cot tages with gardens, and grow their own fruit and vegetables and flowers and have homes that look cheerful as they come back to them from work. The smoke grimed, close packed houses of some of our streets are, I am inclined to think, a direct incentive to intemperance. So we must induce as many as possible of our working people to live out in the suburbs. "Then we want healthy, educative oc cupation for the leisure hours and holi days of our people. In this colony the bulk of the working population have six teen hours a day for eating, sleeping and recreation. At the least that should al low of four hours for recreation. And be sides this, there are Sundays and the weekly half holidays, and the innumerable stray holidays throughout the year. We must help to provide for them. For this purpose we want public halls, with occa sional entertainments of a bright and at tractive kind —music and dancing and re citals and dramatic performances—any thing that is bright and healthy. And these entertainments must be cheap. They need not necessarily be free, for people will gladly pay a small price for entertain ment." 'Another Item of the Damning Count.•• Crimes directly chargeable to the liquor traffic are of so common occurrence that the story of them has almost ceased to specially shock the public. Like Rome in tne days of Nero, we know that we are in the hands of a murderer, and have grown ;allous to his atrocities. Occasionally some instance of particular hideousness occurs that by its unusual features challenges public attention. Such a one was found in thp daily papers of last week. It appears that in the little town of Beaverton, Mich., there was a hotel pro prietor named Arnell. After several days r -d drinking he went into his house, • little girl, only six yea's old, h <m coming, and fearing him in h. *>, ran u"~ tairs and hid from bin Vd. He followed her, and findi. : ng place shot her dead. The mu. lg the shot ran upstairs, and was m>_. ier husband, who fatally wounded her>v.th another shot. Coming down stairs he caught siftfit of his aged mother sitting in a chair, an invalid from years of paralysis. He fired at her, the bullet plowing its way along her n.-m. Coming into the street he met and fired at two of his sisters, wounding neither of them, however. A little further on he met his brother and brother-in-law and wounded the former, when the brother in-law fired and wounded him, after which he was taken prisoner and hurried to the jail. This is the etory told in the plainest possible language, without an adjective or an adverb, the hare, naked facts. The strange thing about it is that the Ameri can people know that the saloon pro duces this sort of thing, have known it for years, and keep the saloon right straight on as 112 they wanted these thiug3 done. —The Ne ' Voice. Must Be Put Down. Mrs. Ella A. Boole's recent public state ments prove the determination of the Woman t Christian Temperance Union to down the liquor traffic. To quote Mrs. Boole, she says in part: "One has but to scan the daily and weekly papers with a mind open to con viction to see how drink is at the founda tion of most of the crime—anarchy, politi cal corruption and domestic unhappiness. Not that all these people were drunk when these crimes were committed, but the use of liquors blunts the moral sense, benumbs conscience, inflames passion, perverts manhood and curses womanhood. One reason for the apathy in the presence of these appalling evils is the fact that the masses of the people believe that they arise not from the nature of the drink, but from the weakness of the drinker. But the twentieth century scientist has discovered that they have their source in the nature of the drink, and while some subjects are more susceptible than others, cither by natural or inherited tendencies, evils are as sure to follow the use of alco holics as night to follow day." The Crime-Breeding Centre. The relation of intemperance to crime is thus summed up: "The saloon is the disturbing cause, the crime-breeding centre and direct inspira tional source where both young and old hatch their schemes and receive their common incentive; and alcoholism as a disease is the condition par excellence that engenders the criminal habit and strengthens all its abnormal proclivities." Tliu Effect of Alcohol oil Animal Life. The result of recent experiments on a large scale on animals, made by M. Lain ier, a French doctor, to test the effect of alcoholism oil the s> stem, will rejoice the hearts of the opponents of strong drinks. He has proved tliat animals alcoholized are utterly unable to resist infection with the bacilli of tuberculosis of anthrax, and still less with the poison of diphtheria. Moreover, the progeny of alcoholized guinea pigs are either Dorn dead or are so weak that they survive but a very Short time. These experiments will again direct attention to the subject of alcohol ism in connection with the decrease of vqpuktkm in France.—New York Herald*
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers