izing, as it regarded the tariff
of hotel prices for more steady-going people. Thousands of human
beings were yielding their enforced labor to fill these spendthrifts'
purses, and sugar was king. The picture has its reverse. Civil war has
supervened, the slaves are being freed, sugar is no longer a bonanza,
and the rich man of yesterday is the bankrupt of to-day. Truly riches
have wings.

Spain keeps a large and effective force of soldiers upon the
island,--an army out of all proportion in numbers to the territory or
people she holds in subjection. The present military force must
number some forty thousand, rank and file, and the civil department
fully equals the army in number; and all are home Spaniards. A large
portion of the military are kept in the eastern department of the
island, which is and has ever been the locality where revolutionary
outbreaks occur. Eighty per cent, of all the soldiers ever sent to
Cuba have perished there! It is as Castelar once pronounced the island
to be, in the Cortes at Madrid, namely, the Campo Santo of the Spanish
army. Exposure, a miserable commissariat, the climate, and insurgent
bullets combine to thin the ranks of the army like a raging
pestilence. We were informed by a responsible party that twenty-five
per cent, of the newly-arrived soldiers died in their first year,
during what is called their acclimation. Foreigners who visit Cuba for
business or pleasure do so at the most favorable season; they are not
subjected to hardships nor exposed in malarial districts. The
soldiers, on the contrary, are sent indiscriminately into the fever
districts at the worst season, besides being called upon to endure
hardships, all the time, which predispose them to fatal diseases.

There are known to be organized juntas of revolutionists at Key West,
Florida, in Hayti, and also in New York city, whose designs upon the
Cuban government keep the authorities on the island in a state of
chronic alarm. A revolutionary spirit is felt to be all the while
smouldering in the hearts of this oppressed people, and hence the
tyrannous espionage, and the cruelty exercised towards suspected
persons. So enormous are the expenses, military and civil, which are
required to sustain the government, under these circumstances, that
Cuba to-day, notwithstanding the heavy taxes extorted from her
populace, is an annual expense to the throne. Formerly the snug sum of
seven or eight millions of dollars was the yearly co