The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-11-06

And Historic InteTest-OdditiesO of Mod
ern Life in the Town That was Chris
tened San Carlos Y SAN SevertnO.

tened san carlos 4 san SeNertho'
Especial Correspondence of the Journal
and Courier.l
Matanzas Cuba, Sept, 2S.-Why is it
that 80 many people in the United
States speak of this well-knoWn city as
"Man-tanzas," why, indeed, do most
Americans in Cuba persist in saying the
same, even after they have learned bet
ter? So much easier it seems to adopt
an error than to correct 1t. The best
way of curing oneself of this mispro-
nunciation is to fix in mind the mean
ing of the word Matanzas, Spanish for
slaughter derived from matar,
"to kill" The sanguinary name was
best bestowed upon the locolity some
three centuries ago, because the first
European settlers Ga colony of Canary
Islanders), went into the business of
killing cattle, to supply Havana With
beef. The city itself was christened,
with Mass and solemn cedemonials, san
Carlos y San Severino but somehow,
in spite of the church, King Charles and
the patron saint the old title chung to
it, as a bad name will stick to man,
whatever his subsequent good deeds.
4hobCiu AeiS pSCii ~ bhNNAA
photographed and pen-pictured since
the war that 1 shall not intiict any fur
Their details upon you concerning It's
innumerable points of interest" Eve
rybody knows that it lies on the north
coast Of Cuba, sixty miles east from
Havana, bordering one of the most
beautiful bays in the world; but one
who has not experienced it can form no
IDEA of the indefinable charm of the
/place--ts broad and sparkling sheet OF
water, bluer than the tropic sky that
bends above it; it's rambling, uphill
streets, with their dim old churches
and rows of royal palms; its quaint, low
walled casas, with their fiat-tiled roofs,
inner courts and grated windows; and
the queer social life and customs, as
Spanish to-day as those of any city in
Spain-all of which have given rise to
an amending of the old saying, See
Naples and die to See Matanzas and
live forever
The population of the city is now a
score or two less than fifty thousand,
but time was when it boosted of two
hundred thousand souls. That was in
the golden days of long ago, when the
old capital was the outlet of the richest
gar-producing section of the island.
What has become of the people, do you
ask? Consult the annals of the war
and the bursting Campos Santos for the
answer. For personal safety hundreds
of wealthy Castiian families fled to the
mother country; thousands of Cubans
We're killed in three years skirmishing,
or met death in Spanish prisons, and
more than a hundred thousand men,
women and children starved in the
streets during the awful period Of re-
concentration.
For the stranger in Matanzas, the
pleasantest way of spending a day is in
volante. First he should drive to
the so-called ''palace'-the very large,
two-storied, time-stained structure,
faced with covered portales that fronts
the Plaza d Armas--and pay duty
visit to the governor of the province.
The instant your carriage approaches
the curb swarm of mendicants, old
and young, appear to spring UP out Of
the earth; dozens of lean hands are
outstretched and soft voices pdead for
centavos-'p amor de Dios, senor,' in
the name of Sanctissima Marie and all
the saints in the calendar. Although
Recommendation Is so long thing of the
past, some of its horrors Will linger for
years to come, not only in actual suf-
fering of the orphaned and homeless,
but in habits of beggary become chronic
with the rising genera ton. According
to Spanish custom the ground floor of
the palace is given up to quarters for
soldiers, servants and police, offices and
store-rooms, stables and Kitchens while
up stairs serves as the official resi-
dence of the governor of the province.
You go UP wide flight Of stone steps,
In deep hollows worn by the passing
feet of two or three centuries, through
dim ante-room, bare of everything but
a secretarys desk and couple of SEN
tinels pacing to and fro, and presently
find yourself in an enormous sala, or
rather feel yourself lost in the vast,
echoing expanse. A lveried funky
with a pistol ostentatiously protruding
from his hip pocket and machete dan
Cling at his heels, meets you at the door
and conducts you across the desert of
marble flooring to the central oasis of
Turkish rug, upon which are cane
bottomed chairs and sofas, set vis-a-vs
around a handicapped table laden
with the china vases, glass dogs and toy
saints, so dear to the Latin heart; and
in a moment you are exchanging the
glad hand with as true and courteous a
gentleman as any of his titled predeces-
sors. This shabby "palacio' is not
without its tragic, as well as brlli mt
social history She beauty and chival-
Nv of twenty generations have danced
and coquetted under the crystal chande-
Tiers of this vast sala when to the vo-
luptuous music of the danZa soft eyes
looked love to eyes that spoke again"
Within these moldy walls decisions have
been reached which sent unnumbered
enemies of Spain to imprisonment and
death; men high in government favor
to-day have found themselves to-mor-
row in the grim fortress of San Severi- |
no. and few hours later kneeling with |
their backs to the firing squad
Next, while the day is young, the |
visitor would better drive up the hills |
to the historic old chapel of MontSerrat, !
perched on a nearby spur, overlooking |
the far-famed Yumuri Valiey-"Vale of |
Paradise" 1t Is the usual, Calvary of !
all old towns in Spanish America up |
whose rugged via-Dolororo penetenties
go once a year on their knees, and thus
a bGalltiop for all the sins por1-