Industrial Cuba / Being a Study of Present Commercial and Industrial Conditions, with Suggestions as to the Opportunities Presented in the Island for American Capital, Enterprise, and Labour

For three hundred years or more house drainage has been discharged into cesspools, varying in size from three to ten feet in diameter, and from four to eight feet deep, closed at the top with a stone. While rules for taking proper care of these cesspools are plenty, enforcement of them is so neglected that some of them have not been cleaned in five years. They are not cemented inside and they drain off into the soil and rock, infecting everything in reach.

There is but one slaughter-house in the city and it is owned by the municipality. It is mortgaged, like other city properties, to the Spanish Bank. From three hundred to four hundred cattle are killed daily, and the offal, which might easily be saved, and is, in American slaughter-houses, is dumped into Chavez Creek, where it is left to rot in the sun. The construction of a new building in a different locality has been long discussed, but opposition has been made to it, and nothing has been done. In the meantime the dumping continues in Chavez Creek.

The military hospitals have not yet been examined. Of the nine city hospitals, asylums, and homes examined by Surgeon Davis, three were in fairly good condition, two in bad condition, and four are most deplorable. Some of the houses are overcrowded and the inmates half starved. These hospitals can be put in good condition very soon.

The two principal markets, the Colon and the Tacon, are owned by the city and mortgaged to the Spanish Bank. Their sanitary condition is bad as it can be, but it can be remedied easily and quickly.

An elaborate code of Health Regulations, a volume of fifty pages, exists, but it is seldom or never referred to or its provisions carried out. Dairies prevail in many parts of the city, where twenty to thirty cows are kept in stalls in the same house where human beings live; livery stables are located in the most thickly settled parts of the city; dead dogs, cats, and other animals are left in the open streets for weeks; slops, filth, and night soil are thrown out of the windows and doors on the streets in the poorer localities and no kind of regard is paid to health regulations of any kind.

Both General Greene and Surgeon Davis are of the opinion that the harbour is not such a menace to health as are the cesspools, slaughter-house, and general filth of the city, and that it should come last in the cleaning process.

In recapitulation, General Greene says:

EXTRACTS FROM REPORT OF THE HAVANA YELLOW FEVER COMMISSION, 1879

TEMPERATURE

“This is conceded to be a climatic element of greatest importance, and the ‘annual mean’ to be the chief factor. Throughout the West Indies the mean annual temperature, near the sea, is from 78 degrees to 80, the mean daily range is only about 6 degrees, and the extreme annual range does not usually exceed 20 degrees. At Havana the mean annual temperature varies in different years from 77 degrees to 79; the mean temperature of the hottest months, July and August, varies from 82 to 85 degrees; and of the coldest months, December and January, from 70 to 76 degrees. The minimum temperature is very rarely as low as 50 degrees, and the maximum as rarely exceeds 100 degrees; in fact, the thermometer, in the shade, seldom rises above 94 degrees. There are no records nor any tradition of frost having ever occurred except on December 24 and 25, 1856. It is alleged that even in the sparsely inhabited mountains in the east of Cuba, where the Tarquino peak reaches an altitude of about 8000 feet, frost rarely occurs, and snow never.”

RAINFALL

ANNUAL DEATHS IN HAVANA, 1870-79

“Spanish army losses to January 16, 1896:

“Total mortality of Spanish army in Cuba in 1897 (from Public Health Report, U. S. Marine Hospital Service, April 29, 1898):

“The portion of the city in worst repute is the fifth district, and especially Jesus Maria, one of its wards. This is, to considerable extent, reclaimed swamp lands, filled in largely with street refuse and garbage. It fronts the bottom of the harbour. Its rough, unpaved streets are in many places almost impassable in wet weather, even to pedestrians. Great mud-holes, covered with green slime, and fit only for the abode of hogs, are numerous. The houses, as well as the streets, have an uncared-for, filthy, and disgusting appearance; and the sickly, anæmic residents look as dirty and cheerless as the streets and houses.

“The Punta or Colon wards in the third district—at least the portions which immediately front the sea—have a reputation almost as bad as the Jesus Maria ward. The foundation rocks were, during the last century, excavated to build fortifications, and these excavations were filled up with street refuse and garbage; hence this ward is, like Jesus Maria, to some extent, reclaimed land. These portions are alleged to be very unhealthful, while houses only six or eight blocks distant are not so; comparatively light rains flood the banquettes and run into the houses. The streets are wider and the houses better than in Jesus Maria. Some consider the location of the latter, at the bottom of the harbour, a chief cause for its unhealthfulness, but the unhealthy portion of the city now referred to fronts the sea.

“The three suburban wards, Jesus del Monte, the Cerro, and Vedado, enjoy the best reputation for salubrity, and also for their freedom from yellow fever. Intelligent residents are readily found, who will assert with great assurance that no one is ever attacked in these wards except those who have been elsewhere infected. The summit of Jesus del Monte has an altitude of 67 meters, or 220 feet, the highest point in Havana, or its immediate vicinity. However, there are few, if any, houses about the summit; the average level of the ward is only 80 feet, and more inhabitants live below than above this level. The natural drainage is excellent, the houses in the elevated portion occupy more ground and are better ventilated than in Havana.”

GEOLOGICAL FORMATION

“The surface soil of Havana consists for the most part of a thin layer of red, yellow, or black earths. At varying depths beneath this, often not exceeding one or two feet, lie the solid rocks. These foundation rocks are (especially in the northern and more modern portion of the city, towards the coast of the sea and not of the harbour) quarternary and especially tertiary formation so permeable that liquids emptied into excavations are absorbed and disappear. In the southern and greater portion of the city, these rocks are of cretaceous formation, and so much less permeable that sinks and other excavations readily fill to overflowing. About twenty thousand persons or one-tenth of the population, live on land reclaimed from the sea, in large measure, by dumping on garbage and street refuse. Much of this reclaimed land was formerly mangrove swamps, and Havana still lies adjacent to these breeders of malarial poison. There are few if any towns in Cuba which are not subjected to malarial effluvia from mangrove or other swamps, and many of these suffer to greater extent than Havana.”

THE CLEANSING OF THE HARBOUR

“The sanitarian cannot hesitate to advocate, for general reasons if not especially for yellow fever, the cleansing of the harbour, the cessation of daily additions to it of large masses of filth, and the replenishment of it by constant currents of pure water. To accomplish the last, it has been much insisted on, in the United States, as well as in Cuba, that canals should be dug. Out of Cuba it ought to be better understood that Havana is by no means deficient in highly educated, skilful, practical engineers, who are fully alive to the sanitary interests of the city, and to the merits of this especial subject. Among these, Colonel Albear stands pre-eminent, and in September, 1879, he delivered before the Academy of Sciences an extremely able address on this subject, which is so full of instruction, on other local conditions also of interest to the sanitarian, that this address has been translated and is presented, as a most interesting part of this report. Colonel Albear seems to have conclusively demonstrated the impracticability of these proposed canals; and my own conviction is that if practicable they could not possibly place the small harbour of Havana in as favourable sanitary conditions as are by nature the large harbour of Matanzas and of Cienfuegos, where yellow fever none the less prevails.”

DRAINAGE

“In Cuban cities, generally, good drainage is not found except in such comparatively inextensive parts where nature required little or no assistance. Even in Havana, the oldest and wealthiest city, the visitor is often astounded, especially in the rainy season, by impassable mud-holes, and green, slimy, stagnant pools in the streets and in the backyards. This condition was found even in the Pueblo Nuevo ward, which is located so admirably for good drainage that little labour would be required to make it perfect.

THE PAVING OF STREETS

“Less than one-third of the population live on paved streets, and these are well paved and kept as clean, it is believed cleaner, than is usual in the United States. The remainder live on unpaved streets, which for the most part are very filthy. Many of these, even in old and densely populated parts of the city, are no better than rough country roads, full of rocks, crevices, mud-holes, and other irregularities, so that vehicles traverse them with difficulty at all times, and in the rainy season they are sometimes impassable for two months. Rough, muddy, or both, these streets serve admirably as permanent receptacles for much decomposing animal and vegetable matter. Finally, not less, probably more, than one-half of the population of Havana live on streets which are constantly in an extremely insanitary condition, but these streets, though so numerous, are not in the beaten track of the pleasure tourist, in which capacity the writer, in 1856, spent ten days in Havana without witnessing many of the evils now testified to with emphasis.”

DENSITY OF POPULATION

“The Registry Office in Havana reports that there are upwards of eighteen thousand fincas in this registry district, which comprises the village of Marianao in addition to the city of Havana.

“A finca is a piece of land, with definite boundaries or limits whether large or small, and whether it has buildings on it or not.

“Of the eighteen thousand fincas in the district about fourteen thousand have houses upon them, and the other four thousand being vacant lots in the city, or fincas rusticas, in the rural districts.

“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.”

“Messrs. Ariza and Herrera report that in Havana the average height of the ground floor is from seven to eleven inches above the pavement, but in Havana, and more frequently in other Cuban towns, one often encounters houses which are entered by stepping down from the sidewalk; and some floors are even below the level of the streets. In Havana some of the floors; in Matanzas more; in Cardenas and Cienfuegos many, are of bare earth itself, or of planks raised only a few inches above the damp ground.

“The privy and the sink for slops, the open kitchen shed, and the stable immediately adjoin each other, confined in a very contracted space close to sleeping-rooms. The privy consists of an excavation which often extends several feet laterally under the stone flags of the court. Even if the sides be walled, the bottom is of the original porous earth or subsoil rock, thus permitting widespread saturation of the soil.”

LA LUCHA OCTOBER, 21, 1896

THE American authorities and American enterprise have jointly taken hold of the municipal problem of Havana with considerable energy. This subject is of such vital importance, not only to the industrial reconstruction of Cuba, but to the future of the Island itself, that no apology is necessary for devoting an entire chapter to it. The problems which General Ludlow, the present Governor of Havana, has taken up energetically are those relating to the reorganisation of the police force, public works, water and gas supply, fire department, and other branches of local government. Private enterprise, both English and American, has lost no time in securing the street-railway system and some of the public theatres, and in various ways engaged in semi-public enterprises, the result of which will be greatly to improve existing conditions, and make Havana a much more desirable city, both for business and residence.

In addition to the municipal police and the Orden Publico, there was a force, detailed from the Guarda Civil, whose total strength was about 3500 men. This force constituted the rural police of the entire Island, under the orders of the civil governor of each province. About 300 were used by the civil governor of Havana for duty in the suburbs of Jesus del Monte, Cerro, and other outlying neighbourhoods.

At the time the control of the city passed from Spanish into American hands, the police force consisted simply of the municipal police, about 200 in number, with a few additions, all of whom were temporarily organised into a Government police force after the disarmament of the Orden Publico.

According to this report, in the opinion of the civil governor, a force of 600 carefully selected men, thoroughly well organised, under proper officers, will be ample for the security of life and property in this city. The orders of the President of the United States authorised the organisation of a force of 1000 men. Subsequently the Secretary of War telegraphed General Greene to employ such number of men as was necessary. In the judgment of the commanding general the number authorised by the President was sufficient, and the proposed organisation, inaugurated by General Greene and just completed under the direction of General Ludlow, aided by ex-Chief of Police of New York City, McCullough, is as follows:

The total expenses for salary would be $56,360 per month, or $676,020 per annum. In addition there would be expenses for rent of office, telephone, telegrams, patrol service, 100 horses for use in suburban districts, and other expenses, which would bring the total cost of the police up to about $723,660 per annum.

It is proposed to put the entire police management under charge of an officer of the volunteer army, and to give him a deputy chief, who shall be a resident of the Island, and, if possible, experienced in police matters. Similarly, to put officers of the army of junior rank as inspectors in the principal districts—six in number—and to give to each a deputy inspector, who will be a resident. At the beginning, it is deemed essential that the police management should be in the hands of army officers who can be relied upon, but each will have a deputy who will be a resident, and if possible thoroughly experienced in the police service. It may be necessary to change these resident officers once or more before the best men for the positions are finally found. After the system has been in operation, and the men have proved their efficiency, it will be possible for the army officers to be relieved, and the native or resident officers to assume full control.

In his report on the organisation of the Havana police force General Greene says:

In accordance with the President’s instructions, every officer and member of the police force will be required to subscribe the following oath, which will be printed in both Spanish and English:

The uniform of the new Havana police officer will consist of straw hat, dark blue blouse and trousers, tan-coloured shoes, and white gloves.

Undoubtedly one of the first enterprises that will be pushed to completion in Havana will be an entirely new tramway system, with mechanical traction. General Greene recognises the necessity of this when he says in his report:

General Greene is undoubtedly right in saying that the new sewerage, gas, and water pipes, tramways, and paving of Havana should all be done at one time. If a general plan of this sort were inaugurated, the streets could be taken one at a time and finished. It should be borne in mind that this sort of work cannot be done as it is done in American cities, by reason of the fact that the streets are so narrow that to pull part of them up and leave any room for traffic is impossible. Added to this, the paving which should be done in Havana is more like masonry work than ordinary paving, because in consequence of the tremendous rains in the rainy season when the streets practically become small rivers (for it is not an unusual thing to see small boys swimming in the street), the sort of pavements we are familiar with would be entirely inadequate.

Of the efficiency of the fire department, General Greene, in his report, said that he was unable to speak without further knowledge. “It is generally considered,” he says, “to be very satisfactory, and the inhabitants of the city take great pride in it.”

The fire department of Havana appears to consist of two branches—the Municipal Fire Department and the Commercial Fire Department, the former being partly supported at public expense and the latter at the expense of private individuals.

The Municipal Fire Department is organised as a battalion, as follows:

The apparatus consists of five steam fire engines in Havana, one in Jesus del Monte, and one in Marianao; two hose-carts, and one hook and ladder carriage.

There are 78 fire-alarm stations and 356 water-plugs distributed in different parts of the city.

The debt of the city of Havana on December 31, 1898, according to a statement signed by the Mayor and Controller, was as follows:

By the end of this year the floating debt will be still greater, and the total obligations of the city at that time will probably be about $12,500,000.

together with all revenues and receipts from them during the period of the loan. In addition the municipality mortgaged as further security upward of fifty houses which it owns in various sections of the city. The amount of this loan was $7,000,000, which has been reduced by the operations of the sinking fund to $6,721,000. The mortgage of 1891 is also for fifty years and at 6 per cent., with the same property as security. The original amount was $3,000,000, which has now been reduced by the operations of the sinking fund to $2,882,000. The amount of arrears of interest and sinking fund on the two loans is $343,600.56, which figures as part of the floating debt first above stated.

The floating debt of Havana arises from the failure to pay practically any salaries, contractors, or bills for materials during the whole of the year 1898, and for some debts contracted prior to this year. The items are given as follows:

The revenue of the city is derived entirely from licences and indirect taxation. Real estate is not directly taxed, and the municipality does not receive directly anything from it. The Island of Cuba imposes, among other taxes, a duty of 12 per cent. on the estimated rental value of all houses in the city and country, and it pays over to the city of Havana 18 per cent. of the amount thus collected on rents within the city limit. The Island of Cuba also levies a tax on industry, commerce, and professions, and it pays over to the city of Havana 25 per cent. of all such taxes collected within the city limits. The other sources of city revenue, which are directly collected by the municipality, are the rent of houses owned by the municipality, revenues of the waterworks, slaughter-house, and markets, taxes on meat, coke, and wood, licences on factories and business of all kinds, and various minor licences. The total estimated revenue for the year 1897-98 is slightly in excess of $2,000,000, and the principal items, taken from the budget, are as follows:

These receipts amount to something between $8 and $10 per head of a population estimated between 200,000 and 250,000.

The expenses of Havana are such as are common in every city, namely: expenses of the Mayor and Council (Ayuntamiento), police, fire, health, schools, charities, correction, courts, street cleaning, lighting, repairs and paving, interest, and sinking fund. There is only one unusual item, namely: a contribution of $100,000 towards the expenses of the government of the province. The items are shown in the following statement, taken from the budget of 1897-98:

If honestly and economically expended, these sums would produce good results without greatly increasing the taxes. The interest and liquidation of the debt makes an annual charge of $676,195, about one-third of the present total revenue of Havana; which, if not excessive, is quite enough under existing conditions of the population. General Greene thinks the revenues may be with safety increased, say to $3,000,000. There is force in this, but probably the better way would be before the debt and taxes are increased to try what an honest expenditure of the present revenue will do for the rehabilitation of Havana. Here is what General Greene says on this subject: