elves to death in Havana, or died by fevers induced
through intemperate habits." "Did you ever know a man, white or black,
who drew a prize of any large amount, who was not the worse for it
after a short time?" we asked. "Perhaps not," was his honest reply. A
miserable creature came into the vestibule of the Telegrafo Hotel one
day begging. After he had departed we were told that a few years ago
he was possessed of a fortune. "Why is he in this condition?" we
asked. "He was engaged in a good business," said our informant, "drew
a large prize in the lottery, sold out his establishment, and gave
himself up to pleasure, gambling, and drink. That is all that is left
of him now. He has just come out of the hospital, where he was treated
for paralysis."

Honestly conducted as these lotteries are generally believed to be,
their very stability and the just payment of prizes but makes them the
more baleful and dangerous in their influence upon the public. As
carried on in Havana, the lottery business is the most wholesale mode
of gambling ever witnessed. Though some poor man may become
comparatively wealthy through their means, once in twenty years, yet
in the mean time thousands are impoverished in their mad zeal to
purchase tickets though it cost them the last dollar they possess. The
government thus fosters a taste for gambling and supplies the ready
means, while any one at all acquainted with the Spanish character must
know that the populace need no prompting in a vice to which they seem
to take intuitively. No people, unless it be the Chinese, are so
addicted to all games of chance upon which money can be staked.

Spaniards, and especially Cuban Spaniards, receive credit for being
extremely hospitable, and to a certain extent this is true; but one
soon learns to regard the extravagant manifestations which so often
characterize their domestic etiquette as rather empty and heartless.
Let a stranger enter the house of a Cuban for the first time,
especially if he be a foreigner, and the host or hostess of the
mansion at once places all things they possess at his service, yet no
one thinks for a single moment of interpreting this offer literally.
The family vehicle is at your order, or the loan of a saddle horse,
and in such small kindnesses they are always generous; but when they
beg you to accept a ring, a book, or a valuable toy, because you have
been liberal in your praise of the article, you are by no means to do
so. Anot