d. They can sing no song of
liberty, and even to hum an air wedded to republican verse is to
provoke suspicion. The press is muzzled by the iron hand of power. Two
hours before a daily paper is distributed on the streets of Havana, a
copy must be sent to the government censor. When it is returned with
his indorsement it may be issued to the public. The censorship of the
telegraph is also as rigorously enforced. Nor do private letters
through the mails escape espionage. No passenger agent in Havana dares
to sell a ticket for the departure of a stranger or citizen without
first seeing that the individual's passport is indorsed by the police.
Foreign soldiers fatten upon the people, or at least they eat out
their substance, and every town near the coast is a garrison, every
interior village a military depot.

Upon landing, if well advised, one is liberal to the petty officials.
Chalk is cheap. A five-dollar gold-piece smooths the way wonderfully,
and causes the inspector to cross one's baggage with his chalk and no
questions asked. No gold, no chalk! Every article must be scrupulously
examined. It is cheapest to pay, humiliating as it is, and thus
purchase immunity.

As a specimen of the manner in which justice is dispensed in Havana
to-day, a case is presented which occurred during our stay at the
Telegrafo Hotel. A native citizen was waylaid by three men and robbed
of his pocket-book and watch, about fifty rods from the hotel, at
eight o'clock in the evening. The rascal who secured the booty,
threatening his victim all the while with a knife at his throat,
instantly ran away, but the citizen succeeded in holding on to the
other two men until his outcries brought the police to the spot. The
two accomplices were at once imprisoned. Three days later they were
brought before an authorized court, and tried for the robbery. Being
taken red-handed, as it were, one would suppose their case was clear
enough, and that they would be held until they gave up their
accomplice. Not so, however. The victim of the robbery, who had lost a
hundred and sixty dollars in money and a valuable gold watch, was
coolly rebuked for carrying so much property about his person, and the
case was dismissed! Had the sufferer been a home Spaniard possibly the
result would have been different. The inference is plain and doubtless
correct, that the official received half the stolen property, provided
he would liberate the culprits. Sometimes, as we were a