Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1898-03-03
PARK CONCERTS DRAW HUNDREDS
INSTEAD OF THOUSANDS.
QUAINT, BUT DELIGHTFUL.
SOME INCONSISTENCIES IN THE
"QUEEN OF THE CARIBS."
Oxen Fat and Cows PitifuIiy Lean
Water Excellent and Butter Vile
Streets Narrow and Carts
Wide-The Anti-Amer-
lean Feeling.

Havana Feb. 25.-(Correspondence Of the
| Associated Press.) Havana. Queen of the
| CaribeS,'' as a local poet styles her, is dull
| deadly dull-and while it may be, proba-
| bly, is. stagnation of the surface only, it
| is none the less apparent to the eye of res
| ident and 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 sweetest
strains of the best bands are now poured
into the ears of but few hundreds. The
quondam listeners are absent from Cuba
OF in mourning for their dead are too poor
to make a proper appearance in public, or
too proud to chance a jostle from the ell
bows of "Americanos and rebel Sympa-
thiZers.'
What quaint, contradictory, dilatory
and in some respects delightful city 1t is!
Architects and painters force upon the
sight glaring yelows, where nature offers
perpetual cool greens; anything with mar
bic in or about it is dubbed a 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 good 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 SOL
diery are low in stature. Insignificant in ap-
pearance and unintelligent, not to say stol-
i'd in every aspect; where street cars are
few. bicycles rare. light phaetons (used as
rcabs) in bewildering supply, cats and dogs
little In evidence dney are edible, you
know and vultureS never out of sight.
While public signs of suffering are not
more plentiful than in any city in this lati-
tude, at all times. roofs and closed doors
here, as elsewhere in the island, hide
ghastly 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
as the day.
American relief has done much to soften
rigors in Havana and near by, but the
needs grow as the days of unproductiveness
and idleness lengthen in the tally and the
deaths are fewer, largely because there are
fewer to die.
1t is much to be doubted whether Amer
lean relief has made any but the higher and
more intelligent feel kindly toward 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 Americanos.
Lieutenant Colonel Mendes, 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 bit capricous, and waits of a
couple of hours in his ante chamber 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.