as the total civil, military, and transient
population exceeds 200,000 there are more than 12 inhabitants to every
house. Tenement houses may have many small rooms, but each room is
occupied by a family. Generally the one-story houses have four or
five rooms; but house rent, as also food and clothing, is rendered
so expensive by taxation, by export as well as import duties, that it
is rare for workmen, even when paid $50 to $100 a month, to enjoy the
exclusive use of one of these mean little houses; reserving one or two
rooms for his family, he rents the balance. This condition of affairs
is readily understood when it is known that so great a necessity as
flour cost in Havana $15.50 when its price in the United States was
$6.50 per barrel.

In the densely populated portions of the city the houses generally
have no back yard, properly so called, but a flagged court, or narrow
vacant space into which sleeping rooms open at the side, and in close
proximity with these, at the rear of this contracted court are located
the kitchen, the privy, and often a stall for animals. In the houses of
the poor, that is, of the vast majority of the population, there are
no storerooms, pantries, closets, or other conveniences for household
supplies. These are furnished from day to day, even from meal to meal,
by the corner groceries; and it is rare, in large sections of Havana,
to find any one of the four corners of a square without a grocery.

The walls of most of the houses in Havana are built of "mamposteria"
or rubble masonry, a porous material which freely absorbs atmospheric
as well as ground moisture. The mark of this can often be seen high on
the walls, which varies from 2 to 7 feet in the houses generally. The
roofs are excellent, usually flat, and constructed of brick tiles. The
windows are, like the doors, unusually high, nearly reaching the
ceiling, which, in the best houses only, is also unusually high. The
windows are never glazed, but protected by strong iron bars on the
outside and on the inside by solid wooden shutters, which are secured,
like the doors, with heavy bars or bolts, and in inclement weather
greatly interfere with proper ventilation. Fireplaces with chimneys
are extremely rare, so that ventilation depends entirely on the doors
and windows, which, it should be stated, are by no means unusually
large in most of the sleeping rooms of the poor. Generally in Havana,
less generally in other cities, the entrances a