A Street Corner.
During the sovereignty of Spain no Cuban was ever consulted on any part of the administration of the affairs of the island, and for this reason they are largely ignorant of all the requirements of organization, unmindful of the necessity of proper municipal sanitary arrangements, and incompetent to cope with the suffering of their own people.
When our forces first occupied Havana the city was in a state of chaos, without the restraint of law, and the officers and men of the evacuating army had virtually an officially recognized license to do their will, no matter what it might dictate. Some Spanish officials had destroyed nearly all of the records of the island in the archives of the public buildings; and the result of this work, apparently done merely from spite, will be felt for many years to come, especially in the matter of the records of real-estate transfers, as at the present time it is almost impossible to obtain a clear title to any piece of property. In some cases the records were totally destroyed or carried away, and in others they were hopelessly disarranged so as to render them quite useless; the work showing that it was done by someone who understood the records and knew just what papers would be missed the most. An instance of this mischief may be given in the Department of Engineers, where they either destroyed or carried away every map or plan showing the location or construction of the sewers of the city; and by the loss of those plans the American engineers are compelled to hunt out the different mains, and it more than doubles their labor. In the matter of the real-estate records it will take years to get them in a condition that will be satisfactory to the demands of legal evidence in the transfer of property.
General Ludlow is doing excellent work in the matter of bringing Havana out of the unhealthful condition it was in when he took command, and it is a work that will take many months of hard labor and in which, in all probability, many lives will be sacrificed. He is greatly hampered in his work by not being able to make his department reports direct to Washington, as the course through division military channels is exceedingly slow.
A Typical Street.
The condition of Havana in December, when the first of our Army of Occupation arrived, was filthy beyond all possibility of description. There being no sanitary arrangements for the poor or in the abodes of the poorer classes, the streets and the court-yards of some of these houses were in a disgusting condition. The most surprising feature was the total lack of all modesty; and these people really considered it in the light of a great oppression, and as a direct infringement upon their liberty and upon their rights, that the Americans should compel them to obey sanitary laws. The people of all classes were in the habit of throwing refuse of all sorts into the street, and there was no attempt made to carry it away, the rains being depended upon to clean the streets. There were carcasses of animals that had reached such a state of decay that it was possible to detect the terrible odor for many blocks, and yet the presence of this nuisance did not seem to annoy, in the slightest degree, those at whose door it lay, while to an American it was almost impossible to pass in the vicinity.
Columbus Market, showing Street Cleaners in the Distance.