Evening star., 1899-03-02
No Water System.

In San Juan there is as yet no water sys-
TEN. and in no true sense can there be said
to Da sewers. The closets connect with deep
cesspools some of which have brick con-
duits connecting with the ocean or bay, and
many of them having no outlet at aIl-not
even a vent pipe other than the closet
There are no sewer traps or syphons what
soeVer and there are houses where there
are no ceSspOOls. ana all Stops and filth are
brought through a pipe from the second
story to an open drain in the floor OF the
first story, and there the drain catches all
The filth and Stops from the tenants of the
first floor and carries them sometimes in
plain view and sometimes in a covered
trench, to the rear of the house, where 1t
empties into large cesspool owned by the
proprietors of several houses as tenants in
common. Many of these houses are 2eo
years old and these cesspoo1s were built
when the houses were built and have never
been cleaned. They are alive with all dis
case germs and microbes that can possibly
grow, and the marvel Is not that San Juan
has sickness. but rather that San Juan is
at all habitable.
The water of San Juan is its only re-
deeming feature, and that it Is reasonably
pure is due to the Spaniard of culture liv-
ing on the upper story. All water used in
San Juan is rain water, which is caught on
the roof of the houses and conducted to a
brick and cement ciStern. Ordinarily els
tern water becomes more or less stale when
rains are few and far between, but in San
Juan and on the north and east coast of the
island rains fall two or three times per day,
consequently the water is always fresh.
This ciStern water is run through a sand
stone filter before the Spanish drink it, but
these filters are used year after year with
out being cleaned other than to have the
sediment scraped out Of them once in
awhile. | think under the Spanish method
of caring for the filter it is decidedly worse
than no filter at all. Another source of
health, to offset the effect of so much filth,
is the height of ceilings. In no Spanish
will ceilings less than
feet from the floor, and the majority of
houses have them twenty feet high. An
other striking feature is the entire absence
of window glass. There is not a house in
San Juan that has window sashes and win
dow glass in it.
Because of the trade winds always blow
ing from the northeast, all houses are open
to the south and west, and have lattice
doors. which open and shut on hinges, and
the iattices open and shut as blinds. At
night, when the house is locked up, these
lattice doors are closed and barred. There
is not a fireplace, stove or chimney fiue
in any residence or business house in San
Juan, excepting in bakeries The Spaniard
does not use hot water as an annihilator and
vanquisher of grease and dirt, in the do
mestic sense, inasmuch as he has no means
for heating any large quantity of water.
All clothing, dishes and cooking utensils
are washed in cold water. The only fuel
used is charcoal and that is consumed in
small burner on which is a small pot con-
tanning the food being cooked, and the
cnaTcOaI Is maze 10 Slo" Dy means OF a
small bellows a palm-ieaf fan. There
are very few broils among Spanish dishes.
Everything is Stewed.
Their meals. two in number. are course
dinners, and have as much similarity as
the meals of the boarding school from
which a student wrote to his parents that
he had beef and cabbage for dinner and
cabbage and beef for supper. Not only is
this true with one meal as compared with
another, but it is equally true in many in
stances with the different courses of the
meal. Rice is the principal food of Porto
Ricans. Fresh fish is rarely served but
Massachusetts, Goldfish is a staple article of
diet. Their beefsteaks at first do not taste
SO bad, but as the days go by they seem
to increase in toughness and lack of flavor.
Perhaps the discovery that cattle are not
killed until they have grown very old and
have been worked as oxen has something
to do with the development of dislike for
their beef. Perhaps also, visit to their
slaughter house. situated the ocean
breakwater just east of old Morro, and
seeing the cruelty and filth of the native
butchers, has something to do with the
slight desire that begins to glow for small
American steak, even though it be rescued
from decay by the latest process for pre-
serving meats for the army Their bread
strange to say, .is very good hut / have