000 Chinese. The speculator has already disposed of them at
24l. a-head; they are to serve for five years, and receive four
shillings a day, and they find their own way back. The cost of bringing
them is calculated at 10l. a head,--thus leaving 14l. gain on each,
which, multiplied by 6000, gives 84,000l. profit to the
speculator,--barring, of course, losses from deaths and casualties on
the journey. Chinese have already been tried here, and they prove
admirably suited to all the mechanical labour, but far inferior to the
negroes in the fields.

I find that people in the Havana can he humbugged as well as John Bull.
A Chinese botanist came here, and bethought him of trying his skill as a
doctor. Everybody became mad to consult him; no street was ever so
crowded as the one he lived in, since Berners-street on the day of the
hoax. He got a barrel of flour, or some other innocuous powder, packed
up in little paper parcels, and thus armed he received his patients. On
entering, he felt the pulse with becoming silence and gravity; at last
he said, "Great fire." He then put his hand on the ganglionic centre,
from which he radiated to the circumjacent parts, and then, frowning
deep thought, he observed, "Belly great swell; much wind; pain all
round." His examination being thus accomplished, he handed the patient a
paper of the innocuous powder, pocketed sixteen shillings, and dismissed
him. This scene, without any variety in observation, examination,
prescription, or fee, was going on for two months, at the expiration of
which time he re-embarked for China with 8000l.

As I believe that comparatively little is known in England of the laws
existing in Cuba with respect to domicile, police, slavery, &c., I shall
devote a few pages to the subject, which, in some of its details, is
amusing enough. No person is allowed to land on the island without a
passport from the place whence he arrives, and a _fiador_, or surety, in
the island, who undertakes to supply the authorities with information of
the place of his residence for one year; nor can he remain in the island
more than three months without a "domiciliary ticket." People of colour
arriving in any vessel are to be sent to a government deposit; if the
master prefers to keep them on board he may, but in that case he is
liable to a fine of 200l. if any of them land on the island; after a
certain hour in the evening all gatherings in the street are put a stop
to, and everybody is re