HEIGHT AND WEIGHT OF CUBAN TEACHERS. 489 



their Spanish forefathers. This fact is attributed principally to the 

 enervating effect of the climate, hut there are other causes. The 

 Cubans being naturally a domestic and affectionate people seek to form 

 marital relations at a very early age. Many a young man is a father 

 before he is eighteen years of age, by a wife a couple of years younger. 

 Girls are considered women at the age of thirteen or fourteen, and many 

 of them are mothers of a considerable family before they are twenty. 

 When we consider that the human organism is not fully developed until 

 the age of twenty-one or twenty-two, even in a tropical climate, a 

 large number of these premature marriages and all that they imply 

 might easily account for the physical inferiority of the race. Another 

 custom which I understand is practised more or less extensively among 

 the best of Cuban families, can not but have a damaging effect upon the 

 life and health of the child, and consequently upon the adult physique. 

 This is the pernicious habit of bandaging infants in swaddling clothes. 

 (See 'Cuba, Past and Present,' by Eichard Davey.) 



The object, in all probability, is to give the child what is termed by 

 some persons a fine figure; but, inasmuch as every attempt of this kind 

 tends to cramp the vital organs and eventually to stunt growth and 

 development, it would seem to be one of the customs which the Cuban 

 ladies might well afford to abandon if they hope to rear a vigorous 

 people. Another custom, which, however, is not confined to Cuba, is 

 the excessive use of tobacco. But in that country, I am informed, 

 almost every man, woman and child appears to be addicted to the habit 

 of smoking. (See 'Cuba, Past and Present.') Tobacco may be a solace 

 to the aged, a force regulator for many, and even a food to some per- 

 sons, through the property it possesses of lowering organic activity. 

 But this is the very reason why it should not be used by aspiring youth 

 who wish to attain a vigorous manhood. Excessive smoking produces 

 disturbances in the blood, mucous membranes, stomach, heart, lungs. 

 the sense organs and in the brain and nervous system. When indulged 

 in freely by the young, the habit of smoking causes impairment of 

 growth, premature development and physical prostration. This cus- 

 tom alone, if universally practised by one or two generations, would 

 certainly tend to dwarf the people who become enslaved by it. 



A tropical climate does not invite one to active exercise, and the 

 Cubans as a people may well be excused for not indulging in the 

 violent athletic games now so popular with the Northern races. But 

 it has always seemed to me strange that they do not avail themselves 

 of the opportunities present for swimming and bathing. I under- 

 stand that there are ample bathing places, but the people of either 

 sex seem to have a prejudice against their free use. When one recalls 

 that the South Sea Islanders of the Pacific are among the tallest and 

 best-formed people in the world, averaging 5 feet 9.33 inches in height, 



