1713 CUBA AND PORTO RICO 



years. Floods and other difficulties have prevented its 

 completion. A British company was formed in 1875, with 

 a capital of thirty-six thousand pounds, and given a mo- 

 nopoly of twenty-five years for lighting the public streets 

 with gas. This undertaking was not successful, and in 

 1897 a New York company was organized to construct an 

 electric-light plant. The same company also obtained a 

 concession for electric cars. 



The port is constantly visited by a multitude of sailing- 

 vessels and steamers of all nationalities, while telegraph, 

 railways, and coasting-vessels afford free communication 

 with all parts of the island. 



The city has a board of trade and several local insurance 

 societies. As usual in Spanish cities, many social organ- 

 izations exist, the principal object of which is pleasure, 

 although they are nominally founded upon a benevolent 

 basis. Among these are the Society for the Protection of 

 Intelligence, the Grand Economic Society, and the Friends 

 of Peace. Others have simpler names, such as the Athe- 

 naeum, the Casino Espahol, the Casino de San Juan, etc. 

 The principal benevolent institutions are the orphan asy- 

 lum, having two hundred and seventy children under its 

 care; the College of St. Ildefonsa, for the education of 

 poor children ; the military hospital, the insane asylum, the 

 maternity hospital, and the Hospital of Santa Rosa. 



The entire population of the city and suburbs, according 

 to the census of 1887, was twenty-seven thousand. It is 

 now (1898) estimated at thirty thousand. One half of the 

 population consists of negroes and persons of mixed race. 

 The population within the walls is estimated at twenty 

 thousand, and most of it lives on the ground floor. 



From its topographic situation the town should be 

 healthful, but it is not. The ground floors reek with filth, 

 and conditions are most unsanitary. In a tropical coun- 

 try, where disease readily prevails, the consequences of 

 such herding may be easily inferred. The soil under the 

 city is clay mixed with lime, so hard as to be almost like 



