esponsibilities and return to Spain. This is no
new thing, as there are many families in Cuba of fair position
socially, and often of considerable wealth, whose members are by the
right of classification quadroons. Miscegenation has greatly
complicated social matters, and in half a century, more or less, it
may produce a distinctive class, who will be better able to assert and
sustain their rights than those who have preceded them.

The class of home Spaniards who have emigrated to Cuba has always been
of a questionable character. The description of them by Cervantes in
his time will apply in our own day with equal force. He says: "The
island is the refuge of the profligates of Spain, a sanctuary for
homicides, a skulking-place for gamblers and sharpers, and a
receptacle for women of free manners,--a place of delusion to many, of
amelioration to few."

One peculiarity which is sure to strike the stranger unpleasantly, and
to which allusion has incidentally been made, whether in public or
private houses, in the stores or in the streets, is that the colored
children of both sexes, under eight and nine years of age, are
permitted to go about in a state of nudity. In the country, among the
Montero class, this custom also extends to the white children. The
colored men who labor in the streets and on the wharves wear only a
short pair of linen pantaloons, displaying a muscular development
which any white man might envy. The remarkable contrast in the
powerful frames of these dusky Africans and the puny Asiatic coolies
is extraordinary. On the plantations and small farms the slaves wear
but one garment, just sufficient for decency. The great heat when
exposed to the sun is the reason, probably, rather than any economical
idea.

The populace of Havana is eminently a festive one. Men luxuriate in
the cafe, or spend their evenings in worse places. A brief period of
the morning only is given to business, the rest of the day and night
to melting lassitude, smoking, and luxurious ease. Evidences of
satiety, languor, and dullness, the weakened capacity for enjoyment,
are sadly conspicuous, the inevitable sequence of indolence and vice.
The arts and sciences seldom disturb the thoughts of such people.
Here, as in many European cities, Lazarus and Dives elbow each other,
and an Oriental confusion of quarters prevails. The pretentious
town-house is side by side with the humble quarters of the artisan, or
even the negro hut, about wh