The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1899-02-09

| land. shining, well kept machinery is a
| thing OF the past; i'll most cases what is
not now rusting uncovered in the fields
has been shipped abroad as old Junk
| General prosperity can never return to
war cursed Cuba until its chief source of
wealth-sugar-h been lehabiitated by
the introduction of many million dollars
worth of new machinery.
| A description of one sugar plantation
answers pretty well for all the rest. The
scene is always the same-the tall white
| chimney Of the mill, emitting its thick
volums of smoke like the funnel of a
steamboat; groups of straw matched butts
constituting the laborers' quarters; and at
one side, or on some commanding knoll,
the planters villa, verandered and latticed
surrounded by gardens and beautiful
shade trees. The entrances to some of
the estates are magnificent avenues of
royal palms, the round, smooth trunks.
all as exactly alike as though turned by
machinery, looking like rows of CORN
THAN columns with green capitals, lead
ing TO some Egyptian temple. You see
hundreds of negroes at work and swarthy
| overseers, mounted ON their scrubby Gu
ban ponies, dashing to and fro among
them. Just now they are mostly planting
cane and clearing up the debris of war;
but later you viii see some gangs cutting
the cane with machetes: others loading
the stalks upon ox-carts: others driving
| loads to the mills; and others feeding the
cane between the great steel crushers. be-
meath which jely-like stream pours
forth into into pipes to be conducted to the
boilers Men, women and children spread
the crushed refuse to dry in the sun, after
which it viii serve as fuel. In another
department square cars filled with soft
sugar are rolled along a track to be weigh
ed and then their contents are dumped
/ into watts t. dry, Afterwards the sugar is
shovelled into bags and hogsheads-th
latter to be headed by coopers, the former
sewed up with Irvine. Half century ago
the Cuban planters found their greatest
profit in the manufacture of the best
white sugar; but about the years 1884
revolution occurred in the sugar indus
try, caused by the enormous quantities of
and other European countries put upon
the market. Before that time they i'm
| ported all their fine sugar from Cuba;
now they not only manufacture plenty
! for themselves, but export immense guam
titles of sugar of better quality and at
lower prices, to all those countries which
used to buy of Cuba. Hence few of the
Cuban manufacturers now make the finer
grades, but contine themselves to the brown
varieties and what is known as ''raw'
sugar. No industry is more exacting and
laborious The grinding season extends
! from December to April, and then work
goes on uninterruptedly night and day,
one gang relieving another for a few hours
sleep. The ripening cane must have it's
juice expressed promptly, at just the
right time, if its full value is to be re-
tanned aud serious loss avoided. If the
| the stalks are left too long in the field the
| sap tends to crystalline, whereby the
amount of juice is diminished and its
| quality impaired. A few years ago the
! Cuban Overseer was never seen without
| his long cutting whip, as we'll as his
machete and pistol; but now "a days he
/ ua 1u ha
of the whip is as much due to an improve
ment on the side of humanity, as to the
fact that plantation labor is now nomin-
ally free. The darkest shadows of the
/ picture lie far in the past. For centuries
| the blood thirsty spirit of Spanish slave
/ holders had free scope in Cuba; and after
the aboriginal race was sacrificed mil
lions of Africans were done to death by
oyerwork, insufficient food, the lash, the
| tread mill-simply to fill the pockets of
rapacious masters and satisfy the mother
country's demands for tribute Early
writers tell us how the slaves were allow
ed but four hours sleep out of the twenty
four, being worked by watches through
out the night. Later under the so called
'improved'' slave code, the blacks could
legally be kept at work only from sunrise
till sunset, with an hour for rest and
food in the middle of the day; but this
rule was as little regarded during the
grinding season as the northern farmer
minds wetting when his hay is out in
the rain. Now days the negroes and
mongrel- blooded workmen lock upon the
harvest season as tie holiday of the year,
notwithstanding it's arduous labors; be-
cause then they are sure of job, at good
wages, with plenty to eat, besides the