Morning journal and courier., 1888-02-04

relative rights and duties of persons being and acting within it's territorial jurisdiction, and intending to operate so as to secure for the public safety of person and property" IN OTHER LANDS.
 The Narrow, Queer Streets of Havana The Courteous PeoPle-Hew They R1de-Havana Business Men-The Ladies.
 HAVANA, Cuba, Jan. 30. To the Editor of the JOURNAL COURIER:
 One finds pleasing sense of possession in wandering about any foreign city quite alone. 1 It is in this way you get full enjoyment of the delicious trifes that go to make up any great national fact It is also the only truly receptive condition. To enjoy travel with friends is more in polite form. But crowds mean. dissipation of reflective energies. To be seen go in crowds. To see go alone.
 HAvANA's STREETS.
 In the old fortified city of Mayence, Ger- many, once thought had seen remarkably narrow streets. I believe there are narrower ones in this queer. quaint city. There are surely narrower sidewalks here. With the exception of the Paseo, the Prado and the l many interesting little plazes, with their tiny parks in which the fora of the tropics are | seen in delicious luxuriance, the calles publi- eas CT public thoroughfares of Havana are | remarkably narrow Many are only from twelve to twenty feet wide. There are 8 | number but from six to eight. To stroll ! through thess sinuous passages and build little romances based the contiguity of | some fair senorita's alcoba to some persistent don's quarto, is delightful experience. And then one, while dodging the sharp an- l gles and massive walls, is reminded by iunu- merable sound and glimpse of the exquisite 1 interiors behind, where there are endless
 beauty, bloom and song. Nearly all the streets here are we'll paved with New. Eng ] land granite, brought here cheaply by water5
 and admitted for the city's use duty free, 50 | that man and beast have everywhere solid footing. Sidewalks in the American sense are unknown. > A marrow, raised footway of 1 granite, averaging 2 no. greater width than two feet, is all you will find to keep you out l of tho street. I have measured some no l wider than fourteen inches; and foreigner
 must be dexterous indeed to always retain | his footing. Custom rules that foot passen- gers take the right-hand way. All this has
 certain advantages. No people on earth are so courteous in the streets as the Havanese. There are no crowding and hustling here. If you have the footway and please to saun- ter leisurely, and one behind you is in haste, he will step into the street and pass you with kindly spoken 'fCon perdons" or s'With
 your leave" So, too, if one meets you quite an unusual thing, for the human tide
 moving opposite follows the other side of the
 calle-he will deferentially step from the
 walk into the roadway, while saluting you | with some brief but earnest expression ot apology This rule of the right of way is
 inviolable, and the archbishop or governor general, if either chanced to be on foot,
 would observe it with all the courtesy an6
 exactitude of the less distinguished. There l is only one exception. That is in favor O
 the ladies. They are held strictly accounta l ble to this universal politeness and consider 1 ation on their own part; but if occasion come l when you can serve them by getting into thu
 mud, even for beggar or bag, and you fai I of doing it, you are esteemed-nothing.
 PUBLIC CONFERENCES.
 This street usage and right extend also t. i public convevances which are inexorabl, l controlled. The omnibuses here are called | guaguas. The lines bound from the outskirt
 to central city points, are compelled to com | into the city on one street to the right, anG ! return by another street to the left; and nc 1 similar vehicle is permitted to run in the op | posite direction on those streets. Only tn
 little victorias- one, horse, cochero O.
 driver, aud all, compact enough to drive l through all American dWelling-house door
 are allowed to wriggle and twist around al
 most anywhere. The guagua is so character ! icfi | overlooked. In appearance it much resem l bles the first patterns of our own street cars | set little higher in the air, or very old
 fashioned daguerreotype gallery on low l geared wagon wheels. It hes an excited ant ! noisy conductor in gaudy uniform, and al ! empujader or driver who seems in perpetu l al frenzy Four little Cuban ponies are at I tached to the affair, and as you see it coming
 down, possibly Gale de Obispo-rattlinl
 and crushing thunderously through th'
 narrow thoroughfare-the nags at full gal lop, the guagua swaying and bounding as
 though it would land in some shop-fron I at every lurch, the driver leaning far ovel
 the wheel team, flashing it with the inei
 and cracking his huge whip at the leader
 the meantime shouting: 'Hi-i-il-Hi ill
 at the top of his voice, while working witt ! his right knee @ tremendous stationary
 rubber bellows that, at each prod, emits { lugubrious shriek almost as hideous as {
 seaside fog-horn-you feel you have wit
 messed one active form of Cuban danger. THE aUAGUA.
 But after all the guagua is as harmless
 and exhilarating an affair as you can fnc
 anywhere for the money; while it's nam,
 has quite history. When the first rail | road ever constructed in Cuba was being
 built the ties were imported, duty free
 from the cypress swamps of Florida. Int next year following @ certain insect ray
 aged and nearly destroyed all the orange l groves of Cuba. Scientific investigation
 proved that this lively insect had beer
 brought to the island in these cypress ties
 Soon the term began to be applied to any | thing which had been cunningly slipped into the country free of import; then tt | shrewd innovations that cheapened existing l prices and tariffs in any respect; and wheI these raging stage lines began to actively compete with railways and tramways they 7 fell heir by instant common consent to th , name ''les guaguas." Indeed, the tern ! came to have 8 more widespread and sub tier use. A shrewd impostor is la qua gua A trickster in business is Ia gua' , gua Any man of canny ways, or woman ! of uncanny life, where a certain degree O
 wise secretiveness mantles suspected short
 comings, is of the order of la guagua; ant . society quizzes society regarding 8 delicat and artful intruder as to how he exists, ant with graceful shrug society whispers tn reply: tsCon posibilidad, Ia guagua!"-
 Possibly by his witsr" So that one evel
 stumbles into Spanish sociology by observ
 ing the fiery passage of an old ram shack omnibus through the narrow streets of Ha vana.
 F INTERESTING SCENES.
 It is impossible to adequately convey tn l interest found in the varying and vagarou F I character of these Cuban street scenes
 They furnish endless study and delight The contrast from the splendor and positiv t tiresome grandeur of our great America cities, while extraordinary, is winsome an, . restful. Huddled alongside Havana's mos !. brilliant shops are everywhere found shad owy little holes and niches where patchin : and mending go on with tools and in way 8 as primitive as in the villages of Europe , l thousand years age. Attracted here by display of gems that would honor the mer chants of the Louvre in Paris, there, at th : 1 very next step, grimy blacksmith hammer