countenanced Catholicism as it now profitable investments. By means of the exists in Cuba, if even they admit it to be Catholicism at all. The most open infidelity prevails in Cuba, and the priests as a class are universally despised. MANUFACTURES.-Of these the most important are the making of sugar, molasses, and rum; the preparation of coffee, the manufacture of cigars, the bleaching of wax, and the manipulation of the minor staples of the island. Manufactures, indeed, of any other description, are not to be looked for in any country where the population are not impelled to them by the barrenness of the soil. Salt is manufactured to a limited extent. INTERNAL COMMUNICATION RAIL ROADS.-The means of communication between the interior and the coast are very imperfect generally. The common roads are badly constructed, or rather not constructed at all, and during the rainy season are, in general, impassable for wheel carriages. The evil is diminished by the long and narrow form of the island, which enables the planters to bring their produce to a place of shipment without any very long land journeys. The number of coasting vessels is in consequence very considerable. There are three principal high roads, under the care of the Junto de Fomento; but they are always in bad condition, and quite impassable during the rainy season. They conduct to all parts of the island. rail-road to Batabano, and the steamers on the southern coast, St. Jago de Cuba can be reached in four days from Havana, and the journey to Jamaica is thus greatly expedited.* Communication with all parts of the island by water is effected by means of steamers, which ply regularly. The number of coasting vessels is very great. The number that entered the port of Havana, in 1851, was 3,523.† CURRENCY.-Paper money is unknown in Cuba. The circulating medium, like that of Old Spain, consists exclusively of the precious metals. The coins in use are Spanish doubloons, or ounces of gold, which are a legal tender for seventeen hard dollars; also the subdivisions of the doubloon-the half being $8 40; the quarter, $4 20; the eighth, $2 10; and the sixteenth, $1 50. Mexican and Columbian doubloons are also a legal tender for $16. Their aliquot parts are worth 8, 4, 2, and $1, respectively. Of silver coins, the Spanish dollar, and its divisions, and also Mexican, United States and South American dollars, are a legal tender at their nominal value. The only incorporated banking establishment at Havana, is that called the Royal Bank of Ferdinand VII., which was created in 1827. The capital of this bank, amounting to a million of dollars, was provided by the Spanish government. Its business is confined to the discounting of promissory notes and bills There are six rail-roads on the island. of exchange; and the directors are proThe oldest road, finished in 1838, leads hibited from engaging in any other from Havana to Guines, in the interior, speculation, however lucrative it may a distance of forty-five miles. It now appear, under the penalty of being held belongs, we believe, to a company, who personally responsible. The rate of dishave extended a branch from San count is fixed at 10 per cent. per anFelipe to Batabano; another from Rin- num. No individual or house is accomcon to San Antonio is progressing, and modated beyond $10,000 for three another from Guines to Los Palos. The months. No new discount is allowed rail-road from Regla to the mines of to any party who has been guilty of the Prosperidad has been abandoned. The slightest irregularity, for the space of one from Matanzas to Sabanilla is com- three years afterwards. All property, plete. That from Cardenas to Bemba, even a wife's dowry, is liable for a debt and that from Jucaro to beyond Altami- due the bank. sal are long since finished, as also that The Colonial Minister of Finance is from Puerto Principe to Nuevitas. On president of the bank. The directors all these roads the accommodations for of the bank, three in number, are held passengers are not excelled by any road responsible for their proceedings to the in the United States. The engines are government, in the sum of $10,000 generally under the care of Americans, each, giving mortgages to that amount and also the general management of the roads. These roads have all proved *Notes on Cuba, pp. 336-7. Manufactures-Rail-Roads-Currency-Education. on real estate. Each director has one of the three keys of the strong box. There are also private banking-houses at Havana, which discount bills, and deal in exchanges.* EDUCATION. In the whole island of Cuba, education is at a very low ebb. According to the latest and most favorable accounts, the schools are as follows: Of white male children. 46 female 66 Of colored male.. 66 female Total Schools in Cuba..... 129 79 6 8 222 107 The Sociedad Patriotica was established in 1790, and its name is now changed to that of the Real Sociedad Economica de la Habana, in which the term Royal usurps the place of Patriotic. This Royal Society of Havana is divided into four principal sections-on Education, Agriculture, Commerce and Popular Industry, and the History of Cuba. There is attached to the institution a public library, kept in the old convent of San Domingo, and is open daily, except on Sundays and festivals. The society publishes monthly a memorial of its la The pupils of these schools are divid- bors, which is more or less valuable ed as follows: From this, then, it appears, that out of the whole population of Cuba, which is about 1,000,000, there are only 9,082 children, of all grades, who attend school Of this number, only 3,757 are educated gratuitously. The remaining 5,325 attend school at their own expense. Of the 3,757 pupils, 540 are educated by the once flourishing "Sociedad Patriotica," whose resources were derived from the personal subscriptions of the members, and the voluntary contributions of citizens; 2,111 by local subscriptions; and the remaining 1,106 gratuitously taught by the professors. means. The latest official returns show that the number of free children, in the isle of Cuba, between the ages of five and fifteen, is 99,599; of whom, as before stated, only 9,082 have the benefit of schools, and these chiefly by private No appropriations from the general treasury of Cuba are made for public instruction, although the revenue of the island is about $22,000,000. So far from receiving aid from the treasury, the schools have actually been deprived by it; for when the custom-houses have taken charge of collecting the local taxes established for public instruction, ten per cent. commission has been deducted for the service; and large sums imposed on commerce and trade for this purpose, have been, and are to this day, withheld and unaccounted for by the treasury. In Cuba only one free child in 63 attends school. * Trumbuil's Cuba, pp. 87-102. for statistics regarding the past and present condition of the island. It has branches in nine of the principal towns of Cuba, which are in correspondence with it. The parent society in Havana has numbered from its foundation 300 members. Its corresponding members are 63.† There is at Havana the Royal University, embracing a medical and law school, and chairs on all the natural sciences. The medical school was reorganized in 1842, and the present requisitions for graduation, among others, are a classical education, and six years study of medicine. The ordeal through which foreign candidates for licenses to practice are now compelled to pass, is rigid in the extreme, and the expenses amount to nearly $400. Several of the professors are French, and the school has a very respectable standing.‡ We take occasion here to observe, that it is with the greatest satisfaction that we find ourselves enabled to record so favorable an account of medical education in Cuba. With all her faults, she deserves the credit of duly appreciating the importance of making medicine truly what it professes to be a learned profession. She lays down, as the first requisite for a physician, a classical education; and to this she adds a six years' course of medical study. Our American schools will, many of them, be disposed to consider, as unnecessary, such a severe training; but it is just what it ought to be every where. Here in the United States we have disgraced-yes, 1 repeat it-we have disgraced the medical profession, by omitting the classical education altogether, and by reducing * Under the eye of the Censorship. + Notes on Cuba, by a Physician, 1844, p. 215. the course of medical studies to two book-keeping, arithmetic, stenography, courses of lectures, of four months each! and the English and French languages. The consequences of this are notorious, Of the actual condition of any of the and the medical profession is disgraced. above-named institutions we have no A medical diploma, from an American positive knowledge. medical school, is now a piece of worthless lumber. The only way that this disgrace can be blotted out, is to return to those requisites of a learned profession-a thorough classical education, and a medical course embracing a term of years. Education in Cuba is in a lower state than in almost any other civilized country. Some idea can be formed of this dearth of education from the number of pupils in the schools of its principal towns and cities. At Guines, a town of 16,000 inhabitants, of whom 2,612 are whites, there are only 235 scholars in all the schools. Matanzas, with a population of 16,986, of whom 10,000 are whites, has only 815 pupils, and 16 schools. In very popular sections of the island, the dearth of schools is very remarkable. Nueva Filipina, with a population of more than 30,000, had, in 1844, but one school of forty boys. Guanabacoa, one of the oldest towns in Cuba, with a population of 10,000, had only one free school of thirty boys in 1844. Besides the Royal University at Havana, there are several other institutions of learning. Among these are the Royal Seminary of San Carlos y San Ambrosio, founded in 1773; a girl's seminary, founded in 1691; a free school of sculp ture and painting, founded by the Sociedad Economica, in 1818; a mercantile school, also free, and many private institutions for instruction in the elementary branches of education. ; A museum of natural history was established at Havana, in 1838, of which the learned naturalist, Don Felipe S. Poye, was appointed Director; without the walls of the city a botanical garden was also laid out, which, in 1844, was under the care of Professor Auber. It is agreed by all recent writers on Cuba, that there exists a lamentable dearth of schools in Cuba. Of the white Creoles no liberally educated persons are found except among the more wealthy portion, who send their sons to Europe and the United States for their education. The middle class has but an elementary education; and the lowest class, which is by far the most numerous, is without any education at all sunk into the grossest ignorance. Gen. O'Donnell, a former Captain-GeneThe suppression of infant schools by ral of Cuba, is well known. An order authorities, which in effect prohibits has recently been made, by the Cuban parents from sending their children to the United States for purposes of education; and such parents, deprived of driven to the expedient of proving ill means of liberal education at home, are health, or feigning it, in their children, in order to obtain passports for them.* Such is the state of education in Cuba at the present time, according to the best authorities. Though the people are taxed beyond any other known community in the world, the white population paying annually to the government ernment returns, but in reality it is more than $12,000,000, (so say the govnearly double that sum,) they are almost entirely destitute of schools. It was announced in the Diario de la Marina, of January 1, 1852, that the government free schools, distributed between Hawere about to establish nineteen primary vana, Matanzas, and Puerto Principe; also two normal schools at Havana; but we are not aware that the schools have as yet been established. Among the private institutions of learning at Havana, at the present time, are the Real Colegio de Humanidades de Jesus y Jose, in the calle de Acosta the Colegio de Ninas de Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, directed by Dona Caridad Santi, in which institution is. taught the catechism, reading, writing, Spanish grammar, geography, French, English, Italian, drawing, music, dancing, politeness, (urbanidad,) needlework, etc. It has six professors. There is also the High School of Professor Macsimo Dominguez de Gironella, an institution similar to our best high schools in New. Orleans. From the Havana papers and tobacco. The cultivation of these it appears that there are also several mercantile academies, in which are taught AGRICULTURE. The chief agricultural products of Cuba are sugar, coffee, "Cuba and the Cubans," p. 184. + Notes on Cuba, p. 251. Exports of Sugar, Molasses, Brandy, Coffee and Wax. 109 annual increase, during the 65 years, was 25 per cent. It is not known precisely at what time the cultivation of the sugar-cane (arundo products has advanced with extraordinary rapidity, especially since 1809, when the ports of the island were more freely opened to foreigners. The most complete account of the agricultural saccharifera) was commenced in Cuba. products of Cuba that has ever been published, appeared in a semi-official paper, entitled "Isla de Cuba en 1851," which occupied the entire columns of the Diario de la Marina for January 1, The tables are of official origin, and we shall give them entire. 1852. It was not until after the cultivation of sugar was commenced in St. Domingo, where it was introduced by Piedro de Atienza, about the year 1520. They used at that time, in the manufacture of sugar, cylindrical presses, moved by hydraulic wheels. The isle of Cuba was far behind St. Domingo, at first, in agriculture. As late as 1553 Spanish historians make no mention of sugar in Cuba, and only speak of sugar exported from Mexico to Spain and Peru.† The next products most immediately connected with sugar are brandy and molasses. Of these we have not the statistics as complete as those of sugar. We can only give the amount of those articles exported from the entire island since the year 1826, as follows: Molasses. 3d 5 years, 1795-1800. Average. 4th 5 years, 1800-1805. Average. 5th 5 years, 1805-1810. .15,101,200 Average.. 6th 5 years, 1810-1815. .14,493.756 Brandy. Average. pipes. hlids. 7th 5 years, 1815-1820 Average. 3,611,641 8th 5 years, 1820-1825 .24,526,581 Average. 4,905,316 9th 5 years, 1825-1830. .32,540,689 1831 10th 5 years, 1830-1835. 39,467,878 Average. .7,893,575 11th 5 years, 1835-1840. 50,742,777 Average. 10,148,555 ...104,213 12th 5 years, 1840-1845. ....109,233 64,338,492 Average.. 12,867,698 .18,690,460 1851....boxes.. .1,437,056 From the above table it will be seen that the annual increase in the production of brandy in the 26 years, is about 11 'per cent.; and that of molasses about 9 per cent. From this it will be seen that the increase of the 13th period of 5 years over the 1st period, was 1614 per cent. The See also De Bow's Industrial Resources for other From this table it will be seen that in the last 26 years, the production of coffee in Cuba has been declining at the rate of about 2 per cent. annually, while that of wax has increased about 3 per cent. annually. The coffee plant was first introduced into the New World from the east, by the way of Europe. Van Horn, the governor of Batavia, in 1690, sent some of the seeds to Amsterdam, some of which found their way to America. In 1718, coffee plantations were first made in Surinam, and in 1728, plantations were opened in Martinique and Jamaica. When the French were driven from St. Domingo to Cuba, between the years 1796 and 1798, they carried with them the coffee plant;, and from that time coffee plantations multiplied rapidly in the island. (See De Bow's Industrial Resources, art. "Coffee.") A coffee plantation is one of the most beautiful objects in nature. It is a perfect garden, surpassing any thing that the ablest horticulturist can produce out of the tropics. "Imagine more than 300 acres of land," says the author of Notes on Cuba, "planted in regular squares, with evenly pruned shrubs, each containing about eight acres, intersected by broad alleys of palms, oranges, mangoes, and other beautiful trees; the interstices between which are planted with lemons, pomegranates, cape-jessamines, tuberoses, lilies, and various other gaudy and fragrant flowers; while a double strip of Guinea-grass, or of luscious pines, skirt the sides, presenting a pretty contrast to the smooth, red soil in the centre, scrupulously kept free from all verdure. Then the beauty of the whole while in flower-that of the coffee white, and so abundant that the fields seem covered with flakes of snow; the fringe-like blossoms of the rose-apple; the red of the pomegranate and Mexi can rose; the large scarlet flowers of the piñon, which, when in bloom, covering the whole tree with a flaming coat, is the richest production of Flora's realms; the quaint lírio's trumpet-shaped flowers, painted yellow and red, and bursting into bunches from the blunt extremities of each leafless branch; the young pineapples, with blue flowrets projecting from the centres of their squares; the white tuberoses, and double cape-jessamines; the gaudy yellow flag, and a score of other flowers, known to us only as the sickly tenants of the hot-house. And when some of the flowers have given place to the ripened fruit; and the golden orange, the yellow mango, the lime, the lemon, the luscious caimito, and the sugared zapote; the mellow alligator pear, the custard-apple, and the rose-apple, giving to the palate the flavor of otto of roses;-when all these hang on the trees in oppressive abundance, and the ground is also covered with the over-ripe fruit, the owner of a coffee estate might safely challenge the world for a fairer garden. Nor must this be thought the appearance it presents for only a short period. The coffee has successive crops of blossoms five or six times in the winter and spring; and on the orange, the ripe fruit and the blossom, and the young green fruit, are of ten seen at the same time; while several of the shrubs and plants bloom nearly all the year."*"Nor is the rich fragrance," says Mr. Turnbull, "of the orange grove to be compared for a moment with the aromatic odors of a coffee plantation, when its hundred thousand trees have just thrown out their unrivaled display of jessamine-like flowers, reminding you of what you may have read in eastern fable of the perfumes of Araby the Blest."+ *Notes on Cuba, 1844, p. 139. |