Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1898-03-03
PiCTU RE OF HAVANA
The Queen Of the Caribs Has Lost It's
Former Life and Gayety.
Of Associated Press.

Correspondence OF Associated Press.
Havana, February 25.-Habana,
Queen of the Caribs,'' as local poet
styled her, is alphabetically dull-and
while it may be, probably is, stagna-
ton of the surface only. it is none the
less apparent to the eye of resident or
visitor alike Where once the Thurs
day 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 sweetest strains of the best bands
are poured into the ears of but few
hundreds. The quondam listeners are
absent from Cuba or in mourning for
their dead; are too poor to make a
proper appearance in public or too
proud to chance jostle from the ell
bows of Americans and rebel sympa-
thizers."
What a quaint, contradictory, dila-
tory and, in some respects, delightful
city it is. Architects and painters
force upon the sight glazing yellows
where nature offers perpetual cool
greens; anything with marble in or
about it is dubbed palace, and a
glazier would starve for want OF work.
A city where the streets are narrow
and the carts wide; where work oxen
are sleek and well-to-do and mich
COWS are pitiful in leanness; 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, lnslgnlf1-
cant in appearance and unintelligent,
not to say stOlid in every aspect;
where street cars are few, bicycles
rare. light phaetons (used as cabs) in
bewldering supply; cats and dogs lit
tie in evidence (they are edible. you
know: vultures never out of view
and beggars as plentiful as in Naples
Hong Kong or Cairo.
While signs of suffering are not more
plentiful than in any city in this lat
itude at all times. roofs and closed
doors here, as elsewhere in the island,
hide CHASTITY famine and physical and
mental distress that sickens the heart
to feel and angers the head to know.
Visit some of the prisons, asylums,
hospitals and camps of reconcentra
dos and the miseries are open as the
day. American relief has done much
to soften rigors in Havana and nearby,
but the needs grow as the days Of
unproductiveness and idleness length
Ell in the tally 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 kindly to
the United States Strangely enough,
outward manifestations of dislike are
extremely rare except from the lowest
negroes who may call out American
slave drivers and pig sellers" or the
cab driver who refuses to carry Amer
icanos.
Lieutenant Colonel Mezdez. the
censor, must read and comprehend not
only every word filed for cabling, eX-
cept the governmental and consular
MESA ges, but all the mass Of stuff pre-
pared for publication here, in daily,
weekly or monthly prints. His hours
are a bit capricious. and waits Of
couple of hours in his ante-chamber
are not all infrequent, but when he
does get to work he is speedy and
makes no comment except with the
damnatory red pencil.