Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1875-12-22
Havana-..A Town Where Women
Are Scarce.

Looked at from a social point of view,
what Immediately strikes stranger is
that Havana, like the Rome, of Romulus,
is a CITY without women. There die
annually, out of population of 205, 900
souls, 1862 white males to ,2O4 white
females, while the deaths among the
colored people are for the males, .046 !;
for the females, i ,099. Thus, while the
sexual numbers of the negro and mulatto
population are almost balanced, with
respect to the whites the proportion is
something more than three males to one
female. The fact, however, is self
evident. Hardly any other women than
negresses are to be seen about. Ladies
with any pretentions TO youth and
beauty would sooner die than venture
out unprotected, even for their early
mass; and so uncommon is the sight of
decent women unattended i'm the streets
that foreign ladies, unacquainted with
the custom, and sauntering from shop
TO shop, become the objects of curiosity
not unfrequently degenerating into i'm
pertinence. The cause of these dispro
portions between males and females are
not so far to seek. Besides the prizes
the soldiers and sailors, and the public
extremely precarious, who are either
debarred from marriage or dread its
membranes and responsibilities, there
are here thousands of Spanish immi-
grants of the lower classes attracted to
the spot by high wages, but looking
upon themselves as birds of passage,
who, consequently, would hardly dream
of sending for women from home, while
ny trr ha OF ca1lnna
allows them to look upon the Creole
women with honorable intentions. L
need not dwell upon the obvious results
of this state of things. Suffice it TO say
that regard for women is by no means
enhanced by their scarcity. There en-
sues an exclusive male society. The
charms of cafe and club life, such as
they are, wean the Havana husband
from a home where real feminine accom-
plishments are as unknown as hearth
rugs and fire-irOns. Housekeeping in
the town, and still more in suburbs, is
terribly uphill work. Foreign Consuls
and other strangers usually try it on
their first arrival, but sooD learn 10 look
upon the hotel, with its smells and
noises, as haven from domestic storms.
Nothing like available free services is to
be obtained in a slave-holding commu-
nifty; the laZiness, and, unless awed by
the lash, the insolence of the negro bond
men communicate themselves to the
hired help, whatever be the color, race
or sex, working at the same task with
him i'm a common household. Hence
mans life in Havana is wholly out of
doors, while for woman there is no life
within them. In no town in France or
Italy have / ever seen so mary, or pro-
portionately, such sumptuous and con-
stantly crowded cafes and restaurants.
The Havana merchant is as eager to
make money as he is to squander it.
But the town supplies little besides gross
material enjoyment for his money. A
box at his third-rate opera, a drive in
his dreary prado, are all the amuse-
ments he can have in common with his
wife and daughter. For the rest the
women are left to NOPE at home, play
ing bo-peep with the passers-by from
their window gratings, or pacing the
fiat roofs of their houses like so many
Sister Annes waiting for those who are
never coming. With so little wholesome
domestic society, it is pleasing to hear
the characters universally given for
good conduct TO the Havana women.
Few of them, even of the lowest classes,
frequent the cockpit and the bull-ring,
and the profligacy, the symptoms of
which are only too conspicuous, is of
Spanish or American altogether 70
foreign importation.