The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-05-24

of NarcisO Lopez-The Acquisition of
the Island Considered Four Times
Within Fifty Years.
Especial Correspondence of the Journal
and Courier.)
May II, 1898.
When the American guide book man
writes up Cuba, year or two hence,
he will speak of Cardenas as the Phil
adelphia Of the Island. Though only
an infant town, as compared with its
three hundred year old neighbors-
having been born after the first quar-
ter of the present century, (about the
year 1880, 1 believe)-it has already
played a leading role in Cuba's COM
mercial affairs. Lying at the head OF
a safe and spacious bay, fifty miles
east from Matanzas, and one hundred
and fifty from Havana, it is the last
port of consequence on the north
coast of the island. Beyond Cardenas,
going eastward, all the seaboard in
dustries are shifted to the south coast,
and with the sole exception of Sagua
la Grande, Gan unimportant port at the
mouth of a river-one may sail along
the entire two-thirds remaining length
of the island, rounding Cape Maysi at
the eastern trip and then going west
on the other side as far as Santiago,
without finding place worth visiting.
Cardenas, with a population of TWEEN
ty-five thousand is not only the CAPT
tai of a fertile district, but one of the
main outlets of Cuba's richest pro-
vince, Matanzas; but it is also the great
railway center of the island; or, more
properly speaking, it ought to be, as
all the railroads of the country form a
junction fifteen miles inland at an in
significant station called Jovellennes.
In time Of peace Cardenas enjoyed a
thriving business, particularly in sugar
and molasses-its exports of the for
mer sometimes mounting up to one
hundred thousand tons a year. To the
west and south stretch the great SUI
gar estates which have made this sec
ton of Spain's dominion a prize to be
fought for, with their sugar mills and
refineries-now all in ruins. The wa
ter side of the town is faced with long
wharves and lined with warehouses,
and it's extensive railway depot would
do credit to any metropolis. There are
a few pretentious public buildings, in
Guiding the custom house, hospital and
college; it's cobble paved streets-con-
siderably wider than those of Havana
have two lines of horse cars; there is
gas and electric lighting, and more
two-storied houses than one is accus-
toned to see in Spanish America.
But, notwithstanding the broad blue
bay in front and the Paseo, whose tall
trees seem to touching finger tips
across the road congratulating each
other on the presence of eternal sum-
mer, Cardenas is not an attractive
town. You miss the glamour of anti
guilty and historic interest which per-
vades Havana, Matanzas, Santiago
and feel somehow defrauded by town
which is new without being modern,
young but not youthful. Why a place
of so much commercial Importance has
not been more strongly fortified it is
impossible to say. Plenty of beehive
forts are scattered around the edges
and there are other rude defences on
the land side, to keep the insurgents
out and the recontentrados in but no
massive stone wall fortresses, like the
Moro, Cabanas San Severino, impos-
ing, though comparatively worthless,
with their antiquated guns. BY the
way, did you know that Cardenas was
stormed and taken by a force which
started from the United States about
fifty years ago? 1t was the filibuster-
ing expedition of General Narciso Lo-
PEE, who sailed from New Orleans in
the spring of 1850, when the idea of an
nexing Cuba and her half million slaves
found considerable favor among the
slave-owners of our Southern States.
Lopez was Spaniard (born in Venez-
uela), who had won many laurels in
fighting Spanish-American rebels He
was sent to Cuba in 1871 to fill some
important post under the home gov
eminent; and in Havana he fell in live
with and married a beautiful and
wealthy Cuban girl. Perhaps it was
owing to her influence that he soon re-
signed his official position, and after
wards took part in some seditious I'M
dertaking. The conspiracy was dis
covered and nipped in the bud, as so
many incipient revolutions have been
before and since; and in 1S49 General
Lopez found it expedient to emigrate
between two days" He went to New
York, that paradise of Cuban refugees
and disappointed revolutionists, where
he identified himself prominently with