ever publicly transpired. Like most
political prisoners who pass within the walls of Moro Castle, his fate
remains a secret.

There are two sides to every picture; even light casts its shadow, and
we feel constrained to speak plainly. Social life in the island is
certainly at a very low ebb, and unblushing licentiousness prevails.
That there are many and noble exceptions only renders the opposite
fact the more prominent. This immorality is more particularly among
the home Spaniards, whose purpose it is to remain here long enough to
gain a certain amount of money, and then to return to the mother
country to enjoy it. They look upon all associations contracted here
as of a temporary character, and the matter of morality does not
affect them in the least. Domestic comforts are few, and, as we have
intimated, literature is hardly recognized. The almost entire absence
of books or reading matter of any sort is remarkable. A few daily and
weekly newspapers, under rigid censorship, supply all the taste for
letters. Married women seem to sink far below their husbands in
influence. The domestic affections are not cultivated; in short, home
to the average Cuban is only a place to sleep,--not of peaceful
enjoyment. His meals are rarely taken with his family, but all spare
hours are absorbed at the club. Domestic infidelity is prevalent, and
female virtue but little esteemed. Priest-craft and king-craft have
been the curse of both Spain and Cuba. Here, as in Italy, the
outrageous and thinly-disguised immorality of the priesthood poisons
many an otherwise unpolluted fount, and thus all classes are liable to
infection. Popery and slavery are both largely to be charged with the
low condition of morals, though the influence of the former has of
late years been much curtailed, both in Spain and in Cuba. The young
women are the slaves of local customs, as already intimated, and
cannot go abroad even to church without a duenna,--a fact which in
itself proves the debased standard of morals. The men appear to have
no religion at all, but the women very generally attend early mass and
go periodically to confessional. No one seems to think it strange for
a white man to have a colony of mulatto children, even though he be
also the father of a white family! Many have only the mulatto family,
and seem content. These are generally the home Spaniards, already
spoken of, and when their fortunes are secured they recklessly sever
all local ties and r