s afraid of being thrown into the
ocean if he is impudent, and the worst class of Yankee grafters and
highway robbers that have ever been allowed to stray away from the land
of the free. That is what Cuba is to-day.

Soulless Yankee corporations have got hold of most of the branches of
business that there is any money in, and the things that do not pay and
never can be made to pay, are for sale to tenderfeet. The cuban hates
the Yankee, the Yankee hates the Cuban, and the Spaniard hates both, and
both hate him. In Havana your hotel, owned by a Cuban, run by a Yankee,
with a Spanish or Portuguese cashier, will take all the money you bring
into it for a bed at night, and hold your baggage till your can cable
for money to buy breakfast. It is a "free country," of course, run by
men who will fly high as long as they can borrow money for some one else
to pay after they are dead, but within ten years the taxes will eat the
people so they will be head over heels in debt to the Yankee and the
Spaniard, the German and the Englishman, the Frenchman and the Italian,
and some day warships will sail into Havana harbor, over the submerged
bones of the "Maine," and there will be a fight for juicy morsels of the
Cuban dead horse, by the congregated buzzards of strange navies, unless
they shall shake the dice for the carcass, and by carefully loading the
dice saw the whole thing off on to Uncle Sam, and make him pay the debts
of the deceased republic, and act as administrator for the benefit of
the children of the sawed off republic, whose only asset now is climate
that feels good, but contains germs of all diseases, and tobacco that
smells good when it is in conflagration under your nose, and does not
kill instantly if it is pasted up in a Wisconsin wrapper, that is the
pure goods. If tobacco ever ceases to be a fad with the rich consumer
of fifty-cent cigars, and beet sugar is found to contain no first aid
to Bright's disease, Cuba will amount to about as much as Dry Tortugas,
which has purer air, and the Isle of Pines, which has more tropical
scenery and less yellow fever. But now the Island of Cuba is a joy, and
Havana is like Heaven, until you come to pay your bill, when it is hell.
Streets so wide you cannot see a creditor on the other side, pavements
as smooth as the road to perdition, and tropical trees, plants and
flowers, with birds of rare plumage, you feel like sitting on a cold
bench in the shade, and wishing all your friend