CHAPTER XXIV.
A STATE OF SIEGE IN CUBA.
A Cuban Newspaper Office—Local Intelligence—The Cuban Revolution—Spanish Volunteers—A Recruit—With Bimba—- 'Los Insurrectos'—At a Fire—Cuban Firemen.
'We are in a state of siege!' says my friend, Don Javier, editor of a Cuban periodical called El Sufragio Universâl.
'Y bien, amigo mio; how does the situation affect you?'
'Malisísimamente!' returns Don Javier, offering me a seat at his editorial table. 'The maldito censor,' he whispers, 'has suppressed four columns of to-day's paper; and there remains little in the way of information, besides the feuilleton, some advertisements, and a long sonnet addressed to 'Lola' on the occasion of her saint's day, by an amorous Pollo-poet.
The weather is sultry and oppressive. The huge doors and windows of El Sufragio Universâl office are thrown wide open. Everybody is dressed in a coat of white drill, a pair of white trousers, is without waistcoat, cravat, or shirt-collar, wears a broad-brimmed Panama, and smokes a long damp cigar.
The sub-editor—a lean, coffee-coloured person, with inky sleeves—is seated at a separate table making up columns for to-morrow's 'tirada,' or impression. Before him is a pile of important news from Puerto Rico and San Domingo, besides a voluminous budget from that indefatigable correspondent, Mr. Archibald Cannie, of Jamaica. More than half of this interesting news has been already marked out by the censor's red pencil, and the bewildered sub looks high and low for material wherewith to replenish the censorial gaps. Small, half-naked negroes, begrimed with ink—veritable printer's devils—appear and crave for 'copy,' but in vain.
'Give out the foreign blocks,' says the editor, in the tone of a commander.
The foreign blocks are stereotyped columns, supplied by American quacks and other advertisers to every newspaper proprietor throughout the West Indies. On account of their extreme length and picturesque embellishments, these advertisements are used only in cases of emergency.