J @ STREET SCENES IN HAVANA, & Picturesque and Unique Views in Out-of-the eB Way Nooks. @ od 000200 C0CTTeTCOe You are taken ashore from the ship at Havana by rowboats hooded with canvas against the sun, and the sturdy boatmen give the visitor the first im- pression of the real Cubans. They are an admixture of African and In- dian and Spaniard, with the blood of the African very evidently supreme among the lower classes. There isa frowzy crew of hackmen and hotel- runners’bawling out an almost unin- telligible Spanish patois at thelanding as your welcome to ‘‘the pearl of the Antilles,” and the Cuban cochero im- presses your American nationality upon you at once. Likeother cabmen the world over he considers the Ameri- can as his legitimate prey, and while Cubans pay one price, and foreigners in general a figure one-third higher, the proverbially wealthy American must pay two-thirds more, as a gen- eral thing, unless he be an adept at parrying an overcharge. Havana is dilapidated and pictur- esque, and the traveler will find as much of the bizarre and unique in a stroll up the Prado and about the lesser streets as he has perhaps ever en- countered in a like distance anywhere. To me the most interesting hour in the day in one of those antique towns is in the very early morning, when the place is just getting awake and the hucksters are coming in. These country people arrive in all : sorts of ways for the daily market. One group comes afoot, with tremend- ously heavy loads of fruits and vege- tables carelessly. balanced on their heads or swung on their backs. Here is a swarthy fellow leading a horse bearing capacgious reeded panniers of fruits and stalks of sugar-cane, which latter is a favorite natural confection NATIVE WATER-CARRIER, with the masses, for a copper will buy a long stick of it. The fruits are mostly new to any one not tropic- traveled, and the familiar-looking bananas are tucked in with sapotes, mamayes, aguacates, chabacanos, mangoes, and a great variety of other products rarely ever seen outside those latitudes. This fellow will soon be shouting out his stock with loud-lunged persistency about the streets and into the patios of the houses, and will then sleep and smoke away the rest of the day. Lumbering wains come straining into town, drawn by heavy-necked yokes with restraining nose-hitches. A four-team of these cattle and their great cart will alone block the average side-street, so the country ox-carts rarely get very far into town. When two of them meet there is an ably conducted debate on road rights and considerable native profanity. An am- bulating haystack adds a picturesque touch to the scene and a breath “from the fields. As the diminitive horse under the load swings down the way the grass often brushes the houses cn either side and crowds the foot-men to the extremity of the eighteen-inch sidewalks. An ox-cart, a load of hay and a long-poled volante blankly re- garding each other in a narrow street, and each with an eloquent driver, is a “jam” combination excelled nowhere on lower Broadway. The Cubans are like every other - Spanish-tinctured nationality in their utter indifference to time. Theirs 1s a land of manana indeed, and almost by raving over the delay, as do those nervous Americanos from the North. ‘How many cows there are about the streets!” somebody exclaims, and then he is calmly informed that the morning’s milk is simply being deliv- ered. A bunch of cattle and their driver stop before a house, and the portero comes out with a cup for the morning’s supply. It is seen then that the cows are being milked from there is the view of Cabana fortress across the bay, and of the masts and rigging of the ships in the harbor. | Commerce had not yet spread its wings, and the shipping is not exten- site. A pleasanter walk is through Cuba street, with glimpses into the | barracks of the Spanish soldiers and chance views of the home life of the | people who dwell in their stores and shops. Seeing the soldiers in the barracks one is tempted to ask if they are ever clean. in Havana houses the question will recur a thousand times: How can they help feeling themselves prison- ers behind those massive doors and grated windows? It is better to come to the Cathe- dral this way than to take a cab and drive directly from the hotel. = Com- ing in a cab the two towers stand out just like the towers of innumerable other cathedrals, and the crumbling gray stones are as other time-eaten monuments. But coming upon the A NATIVE FRUIT-SELLER IN HAVANA door to door by the dairymen, for this is the way the acute Cuban housewives have taken to assure for their {ables a lacteal supply which is. entirely fresh and absolutely pure. Otherwise the guile-loving vender might dilute_ the milk before delivering it to his cus- tomers, and ecraftily stir into the watery fluid the juice of the sweet potato to color it up to a duly rich and creamy cast. Even with the cows milked before the door one must con- tinue to watch the milkman, for T have even heard of their having a rubber bag of water concealed under their loose frocks and connected with a rub- HINARI 0 VY, \ Head wiih) | ei AN I dl A A HAVANA HUCKSTER. ber tube running down the inside of the sleeve, its tip being concealed in the hollow of the milking-hand. Only a gentle pressure upon the bag of water within is needed to thus cause both milk and water to flow into the cup at the same time. The milk-venders of Italy and India have also learned their trade to perfection, for they practise this identical trick. Havana has many quiet nooks and corners which escape the American THE CATHEDRAL, HAVANA. nothing can ever hurry them. Over in the railroad yards the crews can sometimes be seen switching the trains back and’ forth by yokes of oxen, while the locomotive engine stands idly by, and -the engineer and firemen smoke cigarettes in the cab. Hours are consuthed by this and like leisure and primitive pursuits, but no one is so foolish as to heat his blood visitors. The walk from the Prado to the little park of the Punta takes hardly more than a minute, yet this spot remains unknown to many. The Cathedral of Columbus may be. approched from it either by a walk along the parapets, on the water front, or by strolling through one.of the nar- row streets lined with substantial warehouses. , Following the quay Cathedral out of some byway unex- pectedly, the whole panorama of its history may sweep across the mental vision in a flash. = As for the sacred bones of Columbus, they are by com- mon report gone. They might have been removed openly with the consent of the United States Government if it had been asked. The ceremony would have been of historic interest, but the painful reflections to which it would have given rise Captain- General Blanco for the mys- tery with which the removal of those ashes was accomplished. Santo Do- mingo can henceforth dispute with Madrid instead of with Havana the genuineness of the ashes. The Cathedral will lose none of its attractiveness if the disputed ashes are no longer in the urn or under the slab which was supposed them. And good poetry and good epitaph writing will be the gainers that the tomb of Columbus is no longer subject to the inscription: POULTRY VENDER. Oh, rest thou, image of the great Colon! Thousand centuries remain, guarded in the n Aud I omembrance of our nation! Don Jose Garcia de Arboleya, a learned Spaniard who wrote a histori- ca) and descriptive manual of Cuba half a century ago, pathetically asked where the muses were when these lines were inscribed. He received no answer. Two Shades. Two misty shades met in illimitable space. “Ah.” thou?” “I sigh,” replied the other, ‘‘over the sad decline of a decaying stage.” ‘“You do!” cried the first. ‘‘How strange! For, know you, this lament- able decline sorely afflicts me as well.” *“To think,” moaned the other, ‘‘that at this very moment a make-up nose—save the mark!—doth move the groundlings to ardent ' admiration. Was ever anything so grotesque, so flippant, so coarse?” ‘““Never,” cried the first; ‘‘it passes belief. This Cyrano’s nose seemeth more like the gibing fancy of a Christ- mas mummy than the staid accessory of a play.” “I am glad,” said the wailing one, “to find such quick and touching sym- pathy. May I ask your name?” ‘“I,”” proudly replied the other, ‘‘am Richard’s hump. And you?” “I am Trilby’s foot.” And they drifted away together.— Cleveland Plain Dealer. cried one, ‘‘why sighest Statistics show that the consump- tion of hay in the large cities is as large now as it ever has been. And of the dwellers | may excuse | to cover | | FACTS OF SIGNIFICANCE, CAUSE AND EFFECT AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE RECENT ELECTIONS. Republican Control of the House of Repre: sentatives Saved by Galns Made in the States \Where Protection Was Emnha- sized as a Leading Issue. A vote for Democratic Congressmen | will be a vote to overturn the Dingley Tariff law, which has been the primal factor of our present prosperity; which has increased the wages paid to American workingmen one billion dol- lars in the passed eighteen months: which made a balance of tra le in our favor of over six hundred million dol- lars last year, and is building new factories and setting more men at work in our mills, factories, logging camps and mines, It will be a vote to indorse the free trade Wilson law, which closed our mills and factories, and enforced idleness and poverty upon American workingmen.—Taco- ma liedger. | It is a fact of history that