Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-07-22
UNCLE SANS Poems
How the Poor Slave and StarVe in
Porto Rico.
WORK Is SCARCE AND WAGES SMALL
Over Half a Million Live From
Hand to Mouth.


Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
SAN JUAN, Porto Rico July /. 1899.
Nine-tenths of the people of Porto Rico
are miserably poor. Their rude huts, scat
tered over the country, are meaner than
the mud novels of Egypt, and the rooms
which form their tenements in the towns
are more thickly crowded than the slums
of the cities of China. All the property of
this island Is owned by few families.
Out of the 100000 of Uncle Sans new SUBJ
jects 100000 live from hand to mouth, and 1
venture that at least half million during
part of the year go to bed hungry.
Let us first look at the poor of the cities.
We talk about hard times but we really do
not know what poverty is. If our fash
ionable girls who go about stunning should
take a trip to Porto Rico they could find
an ample field for their sympathy and their
curiosity. Take for instance San Juan
We have here an average population of 900
to the acre, and 1 venture there are more
than thousand souls sleeping tonight on
this acre where 1 am writing. San Juan
Is surrounded by walls, and by the count
of our health officers there are more than
sixteen thousand people inside the walls
A large part of the $1,000 citizens are
housed outside. The space inside COM
prises eighty acres, but considerably more
than half of this is taken up in streets and
plazas and the grounds of MORO Castle
and San Christobel Another large part
Is devoted to stores and other buildings so
that the people are crowded into a very
small section.
The Caves of San Juan
They live, in fact, in quarters which are
more like caves or catacombs than the
homes of human beings. The town is made
up OF two-story houses built in blocks close
to the streets, each house having a hall
running through the center. The houses are
OF vast extent Their upper stories are the
homes of the rich and NeIl-to-do who go
i through the common hall to reach them.
L ne upper stories have large, airy and we'll
lighted apartments, and the Well-to-do live
very comfortably.
The lower stories are made up of little
dens, the hornes of the poor In them are
scores OF rooms from ten 10 twelve feet
square, many of them without any light
except from the door. and with no ventila-
ton at night except through holes cut out
OF the tops OF the doors. In such rooms
families of six, ten, fifteen and sometimes
twenty live sleeping OH the floor or upon
cot beds, which are taken outside during
the day time.
In going along the streets of San Juan
you can look through the nails and you see
that every hall ends in court al the back
About this court open numerous ROOMS
each of which is the home of a Porto Rican
fanny. AlcSl Vi the rooms are small
that the people do their cooking out in the
court It is in the court that they wash
their clothes, and ii also forms their loung-
Jig place.
Inside the Courts,
During my stay here 1 have visited many
of these courts and have taken pictures of
the people who live in them Their inmates
are as c.eanly as could be expected in their
crowded condition, and considering every
thing are remarkably peaceable Few of
them have any furniture, with the excep-
ton of perhaps single table and chair
The cooking is done on little iron bowls
filled with charcoal. The bowl Is about as
large as a good-sized washbasin 1t has
hole In the bottom for draught, and 1t is
so small that only one thing can be cooked
at a time. Each family has a cook stove of
this kind, and in some of the courts in the
evening a dozen little stoves will be going
at once.
upon the work which they get in San Juan
Few of the men receive more than 30 cents
a day, and many of the women who are
servants get much less. When the Ameri-
cans first came many of the children in the
courts were naked. but the nudity is now
confined to the babies.
The Beggars of San Juan.
The population of some of the courts is
largely made up of beggars. They are fill
ed with the lame, the halt and the blind
San Juan has mora professional beggars
than any town of its size in the United
States. Indeed. beggars fare better here
than they do with US. The well-to-do peo-
pie of the island are very charitable, and
those who have money will always give
something to those VINO have not.
This is especially so as to the blind.
Blindness prevails very largely, and it is
considered an afflction of Providence 1
have seen men borrow money to bestow
it upon the blind when out of change at
the time they were accosted. Some of the
blindness is caused by the pollen of the
sugar cane getting into the eyes while
working, and I am told that the laborers
on the plantations are especially liable to
1t. l have seen blind children in all parts
of Porto Rico, and doubt not that it large