The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-07-01

thlng being established With the lnue-
 pendence of Cuba. But work costing
 millions of dollars should first be ac- | complished in the cities and harpors'
 Under existing unsanitary conditions ih
 Cuba, intimate relations with her would yearly slay thousands; ana OH l the other hand, the enforcement or he- cessary quarantine would be serious drawback to trade, Havana-a perlecI hot-bed of disease, planted at our pack door, so to say-should be first attend ] ed to. Uncle Samuel will find it wise to | accomplish the work himself before | turning the rescued island over to the | Cubans, because they are now too poor | to do it thoroughly, even if they deVel- ! op sufficient enterprise, which IS doupt- | full. At present Havana harbor IS all immense cesspool in the form or d 1 ditch with one end closed. This enu must be dredged out to make the pro-
 posed flushing of the gulf stream possl-
 ble For more than three hun1reu
 years the stagnant water has been re-
 ceiving all the sewerage of great city'
 and the wonder is not that the nelgh-
 borhood is unhealthy but that anypody
 can live in it at all. The menaclnS le-
 mons of disease which have been con- | centrating themselves there for three | centuries must be eXterminated. The | United States must also provide HaFa- | na with a sewerage system. Indeed, to
 render the city even tolerably healthy,
 a good deal of it will have to be anniht- lated.
 Hardly one-quarter of the entire pop
 ulation live fifty feet above sea-level,
 and a great many of the houses
 are built upon land formed by
 the dumping of garbage and street re-
 fuse in what is surely one of the most
 densely populated localities of all the cities on the globe.
 The other ports are not much better.
 Santiago, on it's sloping hillside, has ex-
 cellent natuarl drainage, but is to the highest degree unsanitary. Cardenas- the f1ourishing Chicago of the island,
 which before the war numbered among it's business citizens a good many Americans, is wholly devoid of sanita- ton. The center of it's population being only four feet above the sea-level the ) death-rate is high and would doubt less be a good deal higher were it not |. for the fine, large harbor in front. Ma } ture intended Matanzas for healthful
 
 7 est and deepest at the entrance, thus , allowing the sea to flow freely in and out; and it is also flushed by three big } rivers. Yet thorough scrubbing and } disinfecting is necessary to make the ) dirty old city habitable. Tn Cienfuegos , the so-called Philadelphia of Cuba, f mre than third of the population living only three feet above subsoil | | Tyr;,, oit Ioft itc l tainside, is considered the healthiest l place on the island-thanks to the ac- f cident of situation, not to the wisdom or work of its builders. In many Gu , ban towns the water is totally unfit to t drink; and so scarce in others that were the entire population to indulge in the luxury of bathing and to agree
 on taking turns" each person would r get no more than one bath a year. In
 these hot fever-infested countries, one
 should drink as little water as possible a and eat no fruit until it is cooked v If law to that effect were enforced a in our army, it would save the lives of ! many men.
 The cities and villages of Porto Rico n are even worse than those of Cuba
 only we hear less about them. Nine 
 ty negroes, and modern sanitary ar , engagements are unknown. The water :, supply is poor Scant and generally r polluted houses, huddled together and
 densely crowded, and smallpox and
 yellow fever continually stalk the
 streets. San Juan, the capital, is as :, compaotly built as Canton, China.
 Fortunately our troops on theil
 1 ~ beast or venomous serpents to contend with. Snakes are few, even in the jun, :, gles: but they include some freakisf . reptiles. Such is the "maya"-from l. . . to 15 feet long and of proportionate cir V cumfrance. It looks formidable enough : to put a. whole regiment to flight, but it is only a bluff, for his huge snake. : ship is harmless and too indolent ever II to hug like his near relations of tht ,. boa family. One of the greatest pests our soldiers will have to encounter i: :, the chigo, or" "jigger,' as the wretchet u little insect is commonly called. It in :, sinuates itself somehow through ths stoutest leather and burrows undel 7. the toe-nail. Then it has to be dug ou u with penknife; for if left "A hours thu insect has not only established home II but raised a family under the nail-ant the result may be the loss of the whole e pre-empted toe by amputation. Sant . flies and mosquitoes are not mucl '1 worse in the West Indies than in many > of our fashionable seaside resorts; bu Il we have nothing in our country t match the brown, hairy spiders O |: Cuba, large as the palm of your hant II whose bite is not fatal but causes fev 2 CT. Nor have we anything like the bel e ligerent ants known as "vivajajuas, It which go out of their way to attacl T. you and leave a mark which will keel = their memory green through many et weary day. The Cuban scorpions s' though not particularly dangerous le cannot be said to be agreeable cmpan l. ions, for they have too sociable habi ot of getting into your shoes over night IS and nesting in yaur "back hair,' ant le sometimes even darting into your ca
 in search of a safe retreat.
 Tel After all, the worst danger our sold n iers will encounter in Spain's island vii -ol come from the Spaniards themselves y not in open warfare, but througl VI treachery, or as prisoners. The Spanisl lel prison system is to-day more barbarou l. than that of Turkey or Russia. For lel thousand years the Spaniards hay IT made congenial study of torture, an, yl had ample practice in the Inquisitior l. The long accumulation of evil lyno1,I