Only in the larger towns are there facilities for the gratification of the popular fondness for theatrical performances. Puerto Plata has a pretty theatre. In Santo Domingo City the ancient Jesuit church, long abandoned, was converted into a theater, the stage being located where the altar formerly stood, the boxes occupying the aisles, and the chairs of the audience being arranged in the nave; but a new open-air theatre, the "Teatro Independencia," is more commodious. The Spanish drama is popular, as well as the delightful Spanish "zarzuela" or musical comedy. Owing to the isolation of the country it is not often visited by good professional troupes, and the interior is entirely dependent upon amateur talent.
In social life the clubs are prominent features. A town must be unimportant indeed if it has not at least one club where the men can meet, read the papers and play cards or billiards. The first attention shown the stranger within the gates is to take him to the club and enroll him as a visitor, this action being equivalent to a general local introduction. The clubs give pleasant musical and literary entertainments and dances attended by the best local society. In Santo Domingo, Puerto Plata and Santiago the ladies have a club of their own where they can meet and chat to their hearts' content. Needless to say the most popular entertainments and dances are those given by the "Club de Damas." All these clubs have been of great value in the social development of the country and many of them have given important impulses to education.
Another valuable contribution to civic development is rendered by the municipal bands existing in many towns. They are voluntary associations and tend to awaken in the inhabitants an interest and pride in their city. On Sunday night and sometimes on other nights during the week they play on the plaza, while the people, following the usual custom in the Spanish cities, promenade up and down. Such scenes are very attractive, the ladies, dressed in their best, with their light gowns brilliant in the moonlight; the men walking with them or watching the promenaders. It is on the plaza and in the ball-room where Cupid's arrows do most execution.
Of late years some interest has been shown in athletics, and baseball has invaded the island. Bicycle races occasionally form part of public celebrations, and horse-races and tournaments have long been popular.
Santo Domingo may be said to have two carnivals, one on St. Andrew's day, November 30, the other during the three days preceding Lent. The former is the more exciting. Until recent years there was not a person in the capital and Santiago, where the populace was most given to the typical diversion of the day, who did not voluntarily or involuntarily participate therein. The diversion consisted in throwing water or flour or both on everyone within reach. The poorer people would arm themselves with great syringes and discharge them at every passerby or through the keyholes of house-doors. Others would station themselves at points of vantage with barrels and tubs of water and duck the unwary they were able to entrap. People of the better class would place great tubs of water on their balconies or roofs, which the servants would assiduously keep filled while their masters emptied buckets-full on friends in the street. The young men rode through the streets in open carriages, bombarding the ladies on balconies and housetops with eggs filled with perfumed water, and receiving drenchings in return. Within the last few years the authorities have restricted or prohibited the throwing of water, and the principal celebration of the day is now what is called a "white dance" given by the better society, at which the participants are supposed to come dressed in white in order that the many-colored confetti, serpentines and gilt powders which those present throw at each other between dances, may appear to better effect. During the carnival proper, before Lent, the streets are filled with masked persons in groups or alone, who dance, make impudent remarks or otherwise indulge in nonsense, to the special delight of the ubiquitous small boy. The better class celebrate with masquerade balls, where the merry spirit of the Dominican is given free rein.
The principal vice of the country is gaming. Men of the better class play cards, dominoes, chess, checkers and billiards, for money, but they do so rather for pastime than for gain. Among the poorer classes, however, the predominant idea is that of making money quickly. Cards and dice are often used, but the typical form of gambling, the one at which the poor countryman is fondest of staking his hard-earned wages, is the cockfight. Every town has its cockpit where on Sundays and holidays the barbarous sport is carried on in the presence of crowds of whooping, screaming spectators who often ride miles to attend. The authorities claim that efforts have been made to stop this sport, but that they have all been unavailing. It constitutes a source of municipal income, the right to open cockpits being annually conceded to the highest bidder by the various municipalities. Raffles and lotteries are also permitted by law, being subject to taxation by the municipalities, and in one or two cities there are municipal lotteries.
With respect to morality the same conditions may be said to prevail in Santo Domingo as in other southern countries, the women being in general virtuous and pure and the men inclined to amorous intrigues. The official statistics relating to marriages and births show that of the children born in the Republic almost sixty per cent are illegitimate. These figures, while serious, are rendered less alarming than would appear at first sight by the large number of what the census-takers term "consensual unions" among the humbler classes, or cases where a man and woman, though not united by marriage ceremony, live together publicly as man and wife, rear a family and are as faithful to each other as if they were legitimately married. "Married but not parsoned" is the way in which such unions are referred to in some of the British West Indies. The considerable number of these unions may be explained by the high cost of the marriage ceremony,—for while there are some priests ready to waive their fees for a religious wedding and some alcaldes who are satisfied with what the law allows for the civil ceremony, others are not so complaisant—also by the fact that such unions have become so common that the parties see nothing wrong in them, and further by the circumstance that the parties often believe it more to their advantage to remain single rather than to be married. A friend of mine had a respectable colored man working on his plantation, the head of a large family, but not married to the woman with whom he had been living for over a score of years and to whom he was devotedly attached. My friend endeavored to persuade him to marry the woman, but the answer was a determined negative. "If I marry her she will know I have to support her and she may get careless and lazy. Knowing that I can leave her when I like she will continue to behave herself." Persuasion was then tried with his wife and her refusal was almost identical: "If I marry him he will know that I am bound to him and then he may go and fall in love with some other woman. Knowing that I can leave him when I like he will continue to behave himself."
The homes of the poorer people are mere huts generally built of palmwood and covered with palm-thatch. The houses of the country people are exactly like the "bohios" used by the Indians at the time of the conquest, as pictured and described by the early writers. In the towns outside of the capital wooden houses are the rule and some of the wealthier people have pretty chalets. In the large cities there is a good deal of "mampostería" construction: brick or stone work, covered with cement. In the capital the walls of a majority of the houses have come down from the early days and are of great solidity—here a man's house is literally his fortress. The barred windows of the olden days are here still to be seen. One-story structures are the rule, and there are few if any of more than two stories. The heat of the climate makes window-glass impracticable and the windows and doors are fitted with shutters which permit the air to pass through. Except in the houses of the wealthiest persons the furniture is very simple and of small amount. In the parlors a caneseat sofa, several rockers and chairs and a small table with a few knicknacks are arranged everywhere in the same way. The bedsteads are of iron and the bedroom furniture is reduced to the simplest articles. The floors are bare except for a few rugs. The climate is responsible for the simplicity of the furniture, as carpets would breed insects, and more furniture would mean endless cleaning and dusting, since everything must be open all day. The kitchens are not furnished with iron stoves, but cooking is done on brick hearths, as in Cuba and Porto Rico. The most serious drawback about Dominican houses is the want of proper bathing facilities and of sanitary closets, due to lack of running water in most cities. The most attractive feature of the houses is the patio, or yard, which is often gay with flowers, though not so assiduously cared for as in some other Spanish countries. In similarity to other tropical lands home life is not nearly so intense as in colder climates.