The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-03-03
QUEEN OF THE CARIBS"
SCENES IN HAVANA PICTURED BY AN
AMERICAN CORRESPONDENT.
A Quaint, COnsrndictOry, DiIatOry
City, with Some Good Features
~-FiIibuster DauntIess.
Correspondence Of the Associated Press.

Correspondence or the ASSocldleu L AeSS'
HAVANA, Feb. 35.-Habana Queen OF
the Caribs," as a local poet styles her, is
dull-deadly dull-and, while it may be, and
probably is, a stagnation of the surface
only. it is none the less apparent to the eye
of resident or visitor alike. Where once the
Thursday and Sunday night concerts in the
city's central park called forth crowds SO
dense the police had hard work keeping a
passage clear for vehicles, the sweeter
strains of the best bands are poured into
the ears of but few hundreds. The quon-
dam listeners are absent from Cuba or in
mourning for their dead; are too poor TO
make proper appearance in public, or too
proud to chance q jostle from the elbows OF
'Americanos and rebel sympathizers."
What a quaint contradictory, dilatory and,
in some respects, delightful city it is Arch
fleets and painters force on the sight glar
ing yellows where nature offers perpetual
cool greens; anything with marble in or
about it is dubbed q palace, and glazier
would starve for want of work; city
where the streets are narrow and the carts
wide: where work oxen are sleek and well
to do, and milk cows are pitiful in lean
ness; where water is as good as can be
found and the butter dastardly; where the
police both mounted and on foot, are quiet
in demeanor and capable in action, while
the majority of the disciplined soldiery are
low in stature insignificant in appearance
and unintelligenf, not to say stoid in every
aspect; where street cars are few; bicycles
rare: light phaetons (used as cabs) in be-
wildering supply; cats and dogs little in
evidence (they are edible, you know; vul-
lures never out of view, and beggars as
plentiful and persistent as in Naples. Hong
Kong or Cairo
While signs of suffering are not more
plentiful than in any city in this latitude at
all times, roofs and closed doors here as
elsewhere in the island, hide CHASTITY famine
and physical and mental distress that sick
ems the heart to feel and angers the head
to know. Visit some of the prisons, asy-
1ums hospitals and camps of reconcentra-
dos, and the miseries are omen as the day.
American relief has done 'ch to soften
rigors in Havana and oy. but the
needs grow as the days of effectiveness
and idleness lengthen in tn ally and the
deaths are fewer, largely because there are
fewer to die 1t is much to be doubted
whether American relief has made any but
the higher and more intelligent feel kindly
to the United States. Strangely enough,
tremely rare, except from the lowest ne
groes who may call out American slave
drivers and pig Sellers, Or the cab driver,
who refuses to carry Americanos.
Lieutenant Colonel Mendez, the censor,
must read and comprehend not only every
word filed for cabling, except the govern
mental and consular messages, but all the
mass of stuff prepared for publication here
in daily, weekly or monthly prints. HIS
hours are a bit capriciouS, and waits OF a
couple of hours in his antechamber are not
at all infrequent, but when he does get TO
work he is speedy, and makes no comment
except with the damnatory red pencil