The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1898-10-08

great difficulty In purchasing anything
Enthusiastically Cuban in the stores,
but that is because Cuba produces only
two things. sugar and tobacco, and
buys everything she uses-even buys
back her sugar refined.
The easiest thing to buy is cigars, and
they cost astonishingly less than in the
States. There is an experience in buy
ing them, because the great cigar fac
tories of Havana, producing brands
that are known to smokers all over the
world, are interesting institutions. They
occupy buildings so nearly resembling
the ordinary dwelling house that they
would be mistaken for them by
stranger except for the odOr.
Quaint Cuban Houses.
The Cuban house of the better class is
of the ordinary, typical construction. 1t
is enormously heavy, built Of adobe or
soft stone, to Withstand earthquakes
and to resist heat. The rooms are enOr-
nous, with ceiling from fifteen to twen-
ty orstwenty-fiye feet high, all floors,
even in the bedrooms, being of stone,
anu tuc WiuuoWS CONCACu WIN 6ASne
iron bars.
The houses of the lower class look no
different from without, but are awful
within, and there the cause of Havana's
scourges of yellow fever is at once APP
parent. The city is badly drained. The
bay, with no free course of water, and
comparatively little tide, Is reservoir,
uncleansed, of the city's offaf. 1t breeds
disease, and in squalor where personal
uncleanliness is added to the perils in
Cured by municipal neglect, the houses
of the poor have become the incubators
of pestilence. Havana has many beau
tiful parks, squares and public places.
| The squares are all ornamented with
royal palms and here and there an or
ange or banana tree, and here and there
an Indian laurel.
No city in the world Is furnished with
such an abundance and variety of foods
as is Havana, with the possible excep-
ton of San Francisco. The earth and
| the sea give to its people all the best of
their fruits. The great market Of Ha-
vana is without an equal, SURPRISING,
as it does, the famed French market OF
New Orleans. This market covers an
| area equal to that of an American
block, and 1t Is all under a single roof
There are numberless booths in which
are exposed for sale all the fruits of the
tropics, sea fish, fresh water fish, meats
game, leather goods, jewelry and such
curios as only a seaport visited by the
commerce of the world can pick up
There are seen men, women and chill
dren of every nationality upon tht
earth. The wonder Is how so small
town can gather to itself such wide
range of humanity.
The population Of Havana is mixed
and its morale is very low. The condi
ton of the women remind widely
Travelled man of the women Of thu
Orient. They are close-kept and live II
tropical idleness. Miscegeneration !!
common, and it is no rare matter to FIND
Cuban family of very good social pc
sition and Of considerable wealth com
posed of persons that would be classet
as uuadroons in America. Havana Il
a city Of grand surprises for the foreign
visitor. A political mite as it is in com
parison with London, there are slum
: in Havana that cannot be matched b
the metropolis of the world.
As Place of Residence.
j Havana has infinite charms as
, place of residence. Its climate, its veg
i citation, the cheap rate at which on
can buy all the delicacies of the table
the romance in the very air, the cas-
with which little labor will yield
! large return, the proximity OF the sea
: its middle distance between the invie
Grating north and the tropical cour
{ tries of the southern continent, the PRE-
: fusion of its fruits and fiowers-al
) these things make 1t most desirabi
r place to live. and there is no doubt tina
{ thousands Of Americans had been Their
: long ago were 1t not for the blightin
9 nj ,,ox,rocciuO ru1o nj Su93u-A ru1