Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1884-07-06
urHE cuBANs BORN LOVERS.
Their Use of the Fan and the strange H.
fusion of Their FlirtatiOns.


Cuba is the latest hobby among her
freakish class Of people, says New York
letter to the Chicago Herald, and trip to
the island is now a common occurrence.
Little parties are made up for the excur-
sion. and already some of the distinctive
maunerisms Of Havana bellies are copied
in Fifth avenue. A bright New York girl
has Just made the journey, and her ac-
count Of what she saw IS entertaining,
besides possessing a special interest IN
case American polite society IS to be Gu
banized during the ensuing season at the
summer resorts.
ssVbile I was in Havana" she said, II
was very much amused at seeing the rush
eveTv other American woman made TO Sc
crre Spanish fan. IL was as if after see
inc Rita Sangali whirl down to the foot
lights on one toe, with her unbusied pink
limb describing a circle at right angles to
her body, all the women at the theatre
should rush out for a pair Of silk tights
and dozen short gauze skirts. Not twen-
" American-born women in the states
can handle fan ike a Cuban girl. She
can make il whisper; she can make il
issue orders; il viii talk love for her: in
her hand il Is a pen that writes, vet
leaves no mark to be preserved and sent
to q fathers Office, handed 10 a husband,
times l saw a Cuban girl fiirt /
thought these women the most electric,
mischieyOus, sympathetic, ardent crea-
lures in the world, vet ! lived in a house
with some Of them and visited enough
others 10 satisfy myself that they are
languid, INDECENT, heavy, and had almost
said torpid. They were in bed the dark
half Of each day, and in rocking chairs or
curled on WindOW-sills the other half
Oh 20. at.I rrrsFh AEs,
heel in the middle of the foot, so that if
they had wanted to walk they couldn't.
But they didn't want TO. The hot climate
makes them pass quiescent, cXertionless
lives; and, seeing all this, i maryeled at
the spirit Of their flirtatiOns. Suddenly it
dawned on me that il was all an illusion.
The rerre and chic Of each ones Irritation
was produced with her fan. A smile is an
innocent thing, but aim il at man behind
a fan, whisk the fan away and then, just as
he sees il, cover il with a fan again, and
il becomes positively alarming in effective
ness. Take rOgulsh glance by itself in
plain sight, and il is either a frank
declaration OF atfectiOnate, trustful regard
for its recipient, or it IS a guilty and a
dangerous plaything. But Just imagine a
rOguish glance used in connection with a
fan in the hands Of a girl who can do as
much with her tan as a telegraph operator
can with the little lever beneath his fin
ger! But a Cuban girl can sit and talk TO
you and send messages to her admirer
with her fan without your ever knowing
what she is up to. The idea of any of US
trying that sort of thing. Why, use for a
fan is very small, but if it was only to be
able to hold it in front of me to shield my
self from the sun as gracefully as the
average Havana girl does it, l would give
800 for the accomplishment.
81 am afraid il would be Just as silly for
any of us to try to vie with these tropic
beauties in the degree Of affection they
exhibit. They have not got the same sun.
Theirs shines all the year round, and very
powerfully, too. They marry at u or
IL, and half the time, when you are
wondering at the tender age at which girls
are intrusted with the care of babies in
the parks and streets, you are looking at
the baby's mother and not the hired
nurse. They are born lovers. Love is the
motive of all their music. Each piece of
their dance music is love song without
words. Every movement in their dances
is eloquent Of affection rendered or ad-
vances repulsed. Their whole lives are
thus contracted. The men keep them
shut up in the houses. Their girlhOod is
spent behind the irOn-barred windows of
the parental home; their WOmanhOod be-
hind the irOn-barred windows of a hus-
bands house. They are not artists,
writer's, sculpt0rs, poets, lawyers, minis
/ ters, school teachers, school commits
| siOners, stOrekeepers, and the like, as our
women are. The Cuban men are pas
sionate and jealous. don't like them at
| all. Their own code of morals is such as
| to make them suspect women, and so they
keep the sex locked up. And yet, in spite
of this, l am told that the Cuban girls are
singularly modest and well-behayed-be-
fore they are married.