io; how does the situation affect you?'

'Malisisimamente!' 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 Universal_ 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.

While the foreign blocks are being dispensed, the 'localista,' or
general reporter, enters in breathless haste. He has brought several
fragments of local information. Four runaway negroes have been captured
by the police. Two English sailors have died of yellow fever in the Casa
de Salud. A coolie has stabbed another coolie at the copper mines, and
has escaped justice by leaping into an adjacent pit. A gigantic cayman,
or shark, has been caught in the harbour. The localista has also some
items of news about the Cuban insurrection. The rebels have increased in
numbers. They have occupied all the districts which surround our town,
destroyed the aqueduct, cut the telegraph wire, and intercepted the land
mails to Havana. There is now no communicat