Cuba's Immense Trade

1895

The Total of Its Exports Reaches an Extraordinary Figure.

The trade of Cuba is simply astounding when compared with that of other nations and is only to be explained on the ground that everything raised on the island is for export, and all are articles of the first commercial importance. The exports of Great Britain per capita are $32.70, of France $18.64, of Germany $16.89; of the United States $13.92, of Spain $10.67 and of Cuba $50! Of course it is ridiculous to say that Cuba is proportionately richer than the countries named, even admitting the high character of all her products, but rather it shows how Spanish exactions rake the island over and gather up every item of value in order to raise a revenue out of all proportion to the number of people subject thereto.

The area of Cuba is 45,000 square miles, with a population of 1,631,687. Of this population about 65 per cent is white and the balance colored and Chinese. The annual taxes raised from those people is about $26,000,000, of which over $6,000,000 goes to support the 20,000 Spanish soldiers who are kept upon the island in order to keep it in subjection. Besides all this Spain has saddled upon the island a public debt of $135,000,000. The annual income of the inhabitants is placed at about $80,000,000. The yearly production of tobacco is placed at 300,000 bales. The exports of Cuba are: To Spain, $4,361,331; to France, $698,216; to England, $450,705; to the United States, $57,024,513, and to other countries small amounts, running the total exports up to $64,721,936.

From this it will be soon that the United States furnishes almost the exclusive market for Cuban products, yet the table of imports into Cuba show what a small hold we have upon Cuba in return. Out of a total importation into Cuba of $35,303,055, the United States gets only $9,886,328, while Spain sells her goods to the amount of $11,695,806, and England, which only buys $450,705 from Cuba, sells her $8,410,590. In one year the United States bought from Cuba 1,500,000,000 pounds of sugar, value $45,040,333; over 16,000,000 gallons of molasses, value $1,790,624, and over 16,000,000 pounds of tobacco, value $10,484,604. The character of the imports into Cuba from the United States were meat and dairy products, iron and steel manufactures, breadstuffs, coal and wood and its manufactures. — Atlanta Constitution.

The Land of Cigars

1895

NEARLY EVERYBODY IN CUBA MAKES OR SMOKES THEM.

Interesting Facts About the Big Factories In Havana — The Real Thing at 2 Cents Apiece and Others at $2 — Cigarettes Are Also Very Popular

I have never seen a Havana man smoking in church. It's about the only place where he does not smoke. He smokes in the street cars, he smokes at the public dining table, he smokes everywhere. The presence of women is not considered at all. When coffee is brought on the table, the Spaniard or Cuban lights his cigar or cigarette and begins to send up clouds of smoke. He never even thinks of saying to the ladies, "By your leave," for the custom of the country is to smoke everywhere. On the railway trains there is no smoking compartment, for a man is privileged, and, in fact, expected to smoke everywhere. If he is not smoking, his neighbor will offer him a cigarette. The driver of your coach will smoke and very likely offer you a cheroot.

At the opera the men will walk and smoke between the acts in the spaces behind the boxes and balconies. You will see finely dressed, seemingly well bred men, with ladies in full evening toilet, entering the theater and smoking as they go. You never see a pipe in Cuba. It is the country of the cigar and the cigarette. One of the odd sights to a stranger is that afforded by the negro women, who smoke big, long and black cigars in the street. It was here that the smoking habit, which has spread around the world, had its start, and the Cubans are still more devoted to their cigars than any other people. The cigar industry and the tobacco trade give employment to a large portion of the population of Havana. In every quarter one will run across small establishments where from two to ten men are employed making cigars and some children and women engaged in stripping tobacco.

There are many large factories, employing, some of them, several hundred men and women. Some of these factories make cigarettes as well as cigars. The cigarettes are made out of strong Cuban tobacco, but have the negative virtue of being pure, untinctured tobacco. In every house or office building the porter, who sits in the entresol, is engaged all day long in rolling cigarettes. He has a little table in front of him, where the tobacco and paper are spread out, and he is constantly at work. In this way the porter adds to his income. A vast quantity of cigarettes are smoked here as well as cigars. When the Cuban is not smoking cigars, he is smoking cigarettes.

It is not to be supposed that all the cigars made or smoked in Havana are fine cigars. The best tobacco comes from one district near Havana known as Vuelto Abajo, and the quality of that often varies on different plantations and in different seasons. Much tobacco is raised in other districts which is not of a superior kind and has not the rich flavor that makes fine Havana cigars sought after in all parts of the world. A good deal, probably most of the very highest grade tobacco, is secured for the makers of famous brands of cigars in Havana.

Some of the owners of big cigar factories have plantations of their own and options on the product of other plantations famed for the quality of their leaf, but many of the cigars sold here at a low price are just as rank as any ever produced in the United States, and worse, because they are stronger. One cannot get a very pleasant impression from a visit to a cigar factory. In the large factories the plumbing and sanitary arrangements are unusually bad, and the buildings are filled with had odors, which, mingling with that of the tobacco, have anything but a pleasing effect. Two or three hundred men will be at work in a poorly ventilated room that does not afford proper breathing space for more than a hundred. Neatness and cleanliness are not conspicuous characteristics, either of the men at work rolling cigars or of the hundreds of girls and children engaged in stripping tobacco. If one wants to thoroughly enjoy a fine Havana cigar, if he has over visited one of the factories he will have to obliterate the memory of the visit from his mind.

The fine grades of cigars sell at retail in Havana for less than half the price one would have to pay in the United States — that is, one will buy for 10 cents a cigar that would cost him in Washington 20 or 25 cents, and for 5 cents a cigar he would pay 10 or 15 cents for at home. Then there are cigars or cheroots sold for 1 or 2 cents. The ordinary retail price for a package of cigarettes is 5 cents. The cigars affected here are of the largest sizes, 6 or 8 inches in length, and some of them an inch in diameter.

The very finest cigars made here go to England. Some of them cost $1 each here at wholesale. The men who make these cigars are paid 30 cents each for the making of them. They are made with the greatest care, every bit of leaf in them being selected and especially treated and the rolling and wrapping being done by the most skillful of cigar makers. One of these men engaged in making those $1 cigars will not make more than 20 or 30 in a day. He is supplied with a certain amount of tobacco when he begins work in the morning, and when he turns in the product of his day's labor at night must account for all the tobacco. The cigars are carefully inspected, and if any defect, the slightest crack or a variation in color, is discovered in a cigar it is rejected. The cigar maker is paid only for the perfect cigars. In the best factories the rejected cigars are smoked up by the employees.

In some factories where cigars not of the very finest quality are made the rejected cigars are boxed and sold as "seconds." In all the factories the cigar makers are privileged to smoke all they want of their own product and to take a pocketful of cigars with them when they go out at night. Of course this is in part at their own expense, for they are paid for the cigars they turn in. One will see cigars for sale at the stands here for as much as 80 cents or $1. Some of them are packed separately in glass tubes, so as to preserve their elusive Cuban flavor. A cigar costing $1 here would cost $2 in the United States, and a man who smoked half a dozen of them a day ought to pay a pretty good income tax. — Havana Cor. Washington Star.

Cuban Peculiarities

1895

Some of the Curious Customs That Confront a Visitor to Havana.

Ben Stern, a New York theatrical man, tells some amusing incidents connected with a visit he made to Havana.

"Talk about yellow fever," said Mr. Stern, "you have it in Cuba. It is full of it. You have to be very careful how you live, what you drink, and then you are fortunate to escape. In the hotels — such as they are — you find marble floors. In your room you will find a little rug near your bed, and you are supposed to stand on this rug while dressing.

You are warned to keep off the marble in your bare feet. You may catch yellow fever. Carpets you have not. They hold the germs. Ninety per cent of the houses are but a single story high. The streets are just wide enough to allow two small vehicles to pass, and the sidewalks are about two feet in width.

"But what impressed me is the system of taxes — bribe taking and tipping. If you register at a hotel, you place a stamp opposite your name. If you use a sheet of paper, you stamp it, and if you go into a public park somebody will ask you for 10 cents before you sit down. Then the stamps are only kept in limited quantities. I asked a hotel clerk why they did not keep a better supply. He declared it was because the next Spanish steamer arriving might bring a new design, and the old ones would have to be destroyed at the cost of the holder of them. So you see Spain's way of doing business with her Cuban subjects. They hate their mother country — I mean the native Cubans. Of course, the Spaniards, strictly speaking, are more loyal. Unfurl an American flag in Cuba, and the people fairly go wild over the stars and stripes. Unfurl the emblem of Spain, and there is not much enthusiasm.

"The rules of the theater are queer: You pay so much to get in and then pay for your seat afterward. No difference if you had a $20 box seat, you would have to pay an admission fee. The system is full of bother to the patrons of the places of amusement. There are, I believe, about 30 newspapers printed in Cuba, but only about five attract much attention. All are printed in Spanish. About the only Americans you see are in one hotel, and when you leave there you are among the Cubans entirely. The system of collecting duties is very lax — full of temptations for bribery, which, I am told, is one of the worst evils of the island. The Spanish government has everything of an official character under its control, which makes Spain hated all the more. There is really but one city wherein theatrical attractions pay — that is Havana. It takes as long to get 400 miles into the interior of the island sometimes as it does to go from here to Cuba. It is a great country in its way." — Cincinnati Commercial Gazette.

Would Rather Smoke Than Eat

1901

"One day," writes an American in Havana, "I came across an old Cuban woman sitting disconsolately on a rock near Morro castle. She told me in Spanish that for three days she had had nothing to eat but a loaf of bread and coffee. She looked it. I gave her a Spanish dollar and followed in her wake. She entered the first cafe she came to and bought a drink and a cigar. I couldn't help laughing to see her as she walked along the street puffing away at the weed purchased with my money. She seemed perfectly contented. The Cubans, even the women, would rather smoke than eat. They take only two meals a day, breakfast about 10 o'clock and dinner at 4 in the afternoon."

The Kissing Cashier of Paris

1905

Ideas That Draw Custom

Proprietors of European Cafes Show Enterprise

In many of the European cafes of the cheaper order it is the invariable custom to print the daily menu on the napkin provided for the guest, so that when the latter desires to study the bill of fare he has to raise his serviette from his knee in order to do so.

But perhaps the most extraordinary custom in connection with restaurant life is that which obtains in a certain little cafe in the suburbs of Paris, where every customer whose bill amounts to 25 cents or over is entitled to receive a kiss from the very attractive young lady who acts as cashier to the establishment.

So used has the damsel become to the osculatory routine that she goes through it without the slightest reticence, looking upon it purely as a matter of business, and it is reported that the proprietor of the restaurant is more than satisfied with the result of his curious device for attracting patrons.

Another enterprising restauranteur has instituted the practice of making a present of a box of Havana cigars every New Year's day to those patrons who have been pretty regular in their attendance at his establishment during the preceding year.

The Cuban Girl

1896

A Cuban girl's life is very restricted, and she is never allowed to go out alone nor receive callers of the other sex except in the presence of her chaperon or some member of her family. If during her childhood she attends a day school, a maid or some family servant takes her there every day, and she cannot go as short a distance as across the street unaccompanied.

In some instances Spanish customs are absurd and incongruous. Every well-fitted establishment in Cuba is provided with a concierge, to guard the entrance and admit callers. This man, usually an ignorant peasant, sometimes escorts the young ladies of the family he is serving, and that is considered perfectly proper, whereas it would not be proper for them to go out attended by a gentleman, even if he were old enough to be their father, and an old friend of the family as well.

Of late years, however, the frequent intercourse between Cuba and the United States has somewhat modified the customs. For instance, two ladies can now go out alone in Havana in the day time, which would have been considered an unheard of and almost shocking proceeding a few years ago.

The social pastimes a girls enjoys in Cuba consists of balls, parties, concerts, receptions, the theatre and opera, and picnic, for Cubans have adopted this American division, although in a modified form, to suit the requirements of Cuban etiquette.

Baseball Season Opens

1900

The opening of the baseball season" is a phrase which implies that the season opens everywhere at once. In reality, the season opens in our big country very much as the honey season for the bees, or the season of birds' singing, or the strawberry season, opens — that is to say, not long after New Year's day in Florida, and from that date on to a period several months later in northern Maine. Now that American soldiers have introduced the American game in Havana, San Juan, Manila and Iloilo, baseball has all seasons for its own.

Although general terms upon anything dependent on climate do not fit a country which extends from the arctic zone to the tropics, the statement may be regarded as approximately accurate that "the baseball season has opened." Baseball is an excellent and manly game, not especially dangerous, interesting, strategic, and well-adapted to the development of the body and the sharpening of the wits.

No game meets, with less harm, the natural demand for an out-of-door sport to act as a means of healthy athletic competition between schools and communities. But its very popularity and adaptability have led to grave abuses. If baseball had not been so interesting, so universal, it would not have gained the discredit which has come from a system of professionalism, a traffic in players, and a frequent display of rowdyism in the field.

Yet with all the discredit, which, after all, affects but a small proportion of the baseball-playing, the game is losing none of its popularity or its real value as an athletic sport, and the reopening of the baseball season is still a matter for rejoicing. — Youth's Companion.

Not Their Time To Drown

1914

Men Swept From Deck of Vessel Thrown Back by Remarkable Action of Waves

Swept overboard by one giant wave, four seamen on the British steamship Ribston seemed to be lost, when another big billow took them on its crest and flung them back aboard the ship. Their mishap occurred while the vessel was on her way from Philadelphia to Cuba, and the story was told upon the Ribston's arrival in Havana.

The men were working near the forward hatch during a wild storm off Cape Hatteras. When the wave flung them into the sea their companions gave them up, because no boat could survive in such waters. To the great surprise of the other sailors, however, they soon saw the four men, drenched to the skin, making their way forward from the after part of the ship. The wave had carried them the full length of the craft and had flung them aboard again near the stern.

The voyage of the Ribston was full of harrowing experiences. The same storm which swept the men overboard carried away several hatches and deluged part of the hold. The ship's entire supply of food was either carried away or ruined. For more than a week the men were forced to live on salty hardtack and they were half starved when they reached Havana.

Several times during the voyage the engines broke down. The trip ordinarily completed in a week took two weeks. The vessel began to have trouble while she was still in Delaware Bay, being forced to anchor several times on account of ice clogging the propeller, and the difficulties continued until she ran into Havana harbor.