int of negro blood. In
consequence of this,--nature always asserting herself regardless of
conventionalities,--a quasi family arrangement often exists between
white men and mulatto or quadroon women, whereby the children are
recognized as legitimate. But should either party come under the
discipline of the Church, the relationship must terminate. Again, as
is perfectly well known, many of the priests, under a thin disguise,
lead domestic lives, where a family of children exist under the care
of a single mother, who is debarred from the honest name of wife by
the laws of celibacy which are stringently held as the inexorable
rule of the Church.

If the priesthood keep from cock-fighting and gambling, says a late
writer on the subject, notwithstanding many other departures from
propriety, they are considered respectable. Can there be any wonder
that the masses of men in Cuba recognize no religious obligations,
since none save Roman Catholicism is tolerated, and that, through its
priesthood, is so disgraced?

CHAPTER IX.

Political Inquisition. -- Fashionable Streets of the City. --
Tradesmen's Signs. -- Bankrupt Condition of Traders. -- The
Spanish Array. -- Exiled Patriots. -- Arrival of Recruits. --
The Garrote. -- A Military Execution. -- Cuban Milk Dealers.
-- Exposure of Domestic Life. -- Living in the Open Air. --
The Campo Santo of Havana. -- A Funeral Cortege. -- Punishing
Slaves. -- Campo de Marte. -- Hotel Telegrafo. -- Environs of
the City. -- Bishop's Garden. -- Consul-General Williams. --
Mineral Springs.

The Inquisition, as it regards the Church of Rome, is suppressed in
Cuba, but the political inquisition, as exercised by the government on
the island, is even more diabolical than that of the former Jesuitical
organization, because it is more secret in its murderous deeds, not
one half of the horrors of which will ever be publicly known. Moro
Castle is full of political prisoners, who are thinned out by
executions, starvation, and hardships generally, from day to day, only
to make room for fresh victims. He who enters those grim portals
leaves all hope behind. Political trials there are none, but of
political arrests there are endless numbers. The life of every citizen
is at the disposal of the Captain-General. If a respectable person is
arrested, as one suspected of animosity towards the government, he
simply disappears. His frie