-stricken appearance elicited a daily trifle from the habitues
of the house. Early one morning we discovered this representative of
want and misery purchasing a lottery ticket. They are so divided and
subdivided, it appears, as to come even within the means of the street
beggars! Speaking of blindness, the multiplicity of people thus
afflicted, especially among negroes and coolies, led to the
enumeration of those met with in a single day; the result was
seventeen. On inquiry it was found that inflammation of the eyes is as
common here as in Egypt, and that it runs a rapid and fatal
course,--fatal to the sight after having once attacked a victim,
unless it receives prompt, judicious, and scientific treatment.

The Chinese coolies, who are encountered in all parts of the island,
but more especially in the cities, are almost invariably decrepit,
poverty-stricken mendicants, and very frequently blind. They are such
as have been through their eight years' contract, and have been
brought to their present condition by ill-treatment, insufficient
food, and the troubles incident to the climate. In the majority of
cases these coolies have been cheated out of the trifling amount of
wages promised to them, for there is no law in Cuba to which they can
appeal. There are laws which will afford the negro justice if resorted
to under certain circumstances, but none for the coolies. There are
some few Chinamen who have survived every exigency, and are now
engaged in keeping small stores or fruit stands, cigar making, and
other light employments, their only hope being to gain money enough
to carry them back to their native land, and to have a few dollars
left to support them after getting there. There are no Chinese
laundries in Cuba; John cannot compete with the black women in this
occupation, for they are natural washers and ironers. John is only a
skillful imitator. He proves most successful in the cigarette and
cigar factories, where his deft fingers can turn out a more uniform
and handsome article than the Cubans themselves. Machinery is fast
doing away with hand-made cigarettes. At the famous establishment of
La Honradez, in Havana, which we visited some weeks later, one machine
was seen in operation which produced ten thousand complete cigarettes
each hour, or a million per day! Still this same establishment
employed some fifty Chinese in order to supply its trade with the
hand-made article, for home consumption. The Cubans prefer