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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
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