the little fishing-village at the end of Cabañas fortress, and directly across the harbor from the captain-general's palace :

The streets are very narrow, overgrown with grass, and it is evident that they have never been repaired. Some are on a level with the bay, and others six or eight yards above it. There is absolutely no water-supply nor any drainage. The filthy waters are thrown into the streets or into the bay. The same may be said of every kind of garbage or organic matter. Everything is thrown into the streets, and in every place large quantities may be found. The coal deposited there (there are large coal-docks on that side of the harbor) soils the streets and houses near by. The vaults of Cabañas drain near the town, and while the Spanish troops were there the bad smell was terrible. It is not so bad now, because there are no soldiers there.

Almost all the houses are of wood. In the remains of some demolished buildings the Chinese have formed, with the aid of boards and rags, some miserable huts, in which a large number of them live. In one of these filthy huts I counted seventy of them. All these huts are in bad condition, without light or ventilation, and the streets serve for all private uses. Some families of reconcentrados live in a similar way. Some houses are separated by an alley, in which are placed boxes, barrels, and everything that is not useful in the houses, especially if the building is On the shore are great deposits of garbage from the

a store. vessels.

Then followed in the report ten recommendations to remedy the situation. These recommendations involved the demolition of the Chinese habitations of rags and boards, the cleaning of streets, construction of gutters, purification of dwellings. The physician who made the report, a Cuban, who wrote in English, closed with these

words: "It is necessary to clean the town, for it is a constant danger of infection for vessels in the bay." Captain Geary laid out the city in districts, got the

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL WILLIAM M. BLACK, U. S. A., CHIEF

names of as many men who needed work as he could, appointed superintendents and foremen, hired carts, obtained brooms and shovels, and started in. Early in Feb

ruary, when the work was well under way, the report of what had been accomplished in the previous week showed that 575,000 lineal feet of streets had been cleaned, that 983 cart-loads of sweepings had been taken away, that 585 square feet of paved streets had been repaired, that 2750 square feet of macadamized streets were being repaired, and that 13 scow-loads of street refuse had been taken out to sea and dumped. In that week 650 men were at work on the streets, and the pay for the lowest of them was 833 cents. A great deal of work was done at night, because of the narrow streets and because of the climate. Some of the cleaners were sickly, because they had lacked food. These were put at the easiest kind of work, and day by day most of them showed physical improvement.

Colonel Black's report, made to General Ludlow under the date of February 16, 1899, gave this résumé of the work done in January under Captain Geary :

An investigation showed that the surface of the streets of Havana was fairly clean, through the efforts of Captain Geary, who had removed 2500 cart-loads of dirt. Captain Geary's force was largely increased. The entire city and suburbs were redistricted, and an inspector was appointed for each district, with from 100 to 150 laborers, in gangs of 10 to 15 men each, under a foreman.

Each gang has a definite length of street assigned to it. In general the equipment of each gang comprises 5 water-sprinkling cans, 3 hoes, 12 brooms, 2 rakes, and to shovels, and, for the broader streets, 4 wheelbarrows. Carts follow the gangs and take up and remove the sweepings to the dump-boat. Owing to the narrow streets and the great amount of traffic, the use of the bag system was found to be inadvisable. Later it is proposed to sub

divide the districts and assign a definite piece of street to each man. Under the organization, at the end of the month, with a force consisting of 8 inspectors, 38 foremen, 663 laborers, and 63 carts, 150,000 feet of street were cleaned daily, 200,000 feet three

times per week, 100,000 feet twice per week, and 35,186 feet once per week, covering the entire city. The total number of running feet cleaned per week was 1.735,186. The cost of cleaning for the month was $16.930 18. The sweepings were carried to sea and dumped.

Within a month Colonel Black's pay-roll for all his departments-the chief of which, so far as the number of

employés was concerned, was the street-cleaning department-carried more than 2000 names. In the matter of street repairs Colonel Black made this summary :

Great difficulty was experienced in getting a supply of stone for macadamizing. No new paving-blocks were on hand. Owing to the absence of a complete system of street grades, and also to the certainty that the pavements would have to be torn up at an early date to permit the construction of a sewer system, the work of street repair was confined to filling bad holes or breaks in the pavements. During the month about 3000 square yards of repaving and about 23,000 square yards of macadamizing was done. In preparation for replacing the street pavements, it will be necessary to prepare grade sheets for the entire city street system.

When it came to the question of sewers, General Ludlow and Colonel Black were face to face with the biggest problem in Havana. It has been the general impression that there are no sewers in Havana. That is a mistake. There are nearly ten miles of them, some public and some private. Some of them open into the harbor, like the one that runs under the Custom-house, and others into the ocean. The ends of these sewers, in some cases for a distance of a hundred yards, are open, and although there is a good flow in them, they are a source of infection because they are open. Havana is a place not presenting any difficult engineering problems in sewering. There is an easy pitch to most of the streets, and the city runs along the ocean on one side and borders on a blind harbor, but close to the ocean, on the other side. the mouth of the harbor, and along the ocean-front, the sewers left no noticeable deposits or odors.

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