One cannot make an inventory of paradise in Havana without mentioning the carnival. At the Malecon I watched the Señoritas throw kisses and confetti—the confetti was six inches deep—and I wondered how it would be cleared up till I remembered the number of “rakes” there were on the boulvards. The Cuban’s idea of heaven is an endless Mardi Gras where he may throw star-dust confetti and waltz with the angels. However, the Havana carnival lacks the spontaneity and gayety of Nice, Venice and Martinique, it being more of a fashion show.
The populace takes little note of time save in the dance. All society, from A to Z, thronged the theatres and club-houses where they revolved like automata on a music-box. I witnessed one ball in a small hall where six policemen were stationed to keep the dancers within the bounds of decency.
Cuba has declared a moratorium, yet the people are neither paying each other nor the United States, and act as if sugar were up to 25 cents a pound. They cry for financial aid, yet I witnessed a Sunday carnival where $75,000 was foolishly thrown away like so much confetti.
The Havana youth is a dissipated dude who improves his mind by strutting and staring on the piazzas, and accosting women with insulting looks and words. With him cursing passes for rhetoric. His time and money are well spent at race-track, cock-pit, roulette table and the harlot’s house. He is familiar with all liquors except the stimulating wine of progress.
God has made Cuba beautiful with her altar-like mountains, smile of the sea, waving palms, fragrant fruits and flowers and sweet cane-fields, but Satan has entered this Eden and left his slimy trail. Cuba, “The Pearl of the Antilles,” has been trampled under the hoofs of human swine. Too often the C in Cuban character stands for cupidity, carnality, crookedness, cabals, charlatanism, “Caramba” cursing, and contempt for Americans.
Lot left Sodom and was saved. As I sailed away from Havana, I said with Solomon, “Vanity, vanity, all is Havanaty.”
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The Garter
Consider the garter. It toileth not; neither doth it sin. It stretcheth far, yet giveth not. When comes night it relaxeth, yet morn finds it willing and ready, yea, happy to take, up its appointed task. It hath no visible means of support; it upholds its end and other things; it is the tie that binds. Without it our lives would indeed be loose lived. It enters far into the career of woman, yet, blows no horn about it. It hideth modestly. Once off the shelf of a blatant shop it retireth for life and man sees it no more.
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