STATE OF MORALS IN CUBA. 



181 



Polish peasant s life was held of the same value 

 with one of his horned cattle ; if his lord slew 

 him, he was fined only 100 Polish florins, or 21. 

 16s. sterling. If, on the other hand, a man of 

 ignoble birth dared to raise his hand against a 

 nobleman, death was the inevitable punishment. 

 It anv one oresumed to question the nobility of a 

 magnate, he was forced to prove his assertion, 

 or suffer death ; nay, if a powerful man chose 

 to take a fancy to ttia field of his humbler neigh- 

 oour, and to erect a landmark upon it, and if that 

 landmark remained for three days, the poor man 

 lost, his possession. The atrocious cruelties that 

 were habitually exercised, are hardly credible. 

 A. Masalki caused his hounds to devour a pea 

 sant who happened to frighten his horse. A 

 Radzivil had the belly of one of his subjects rip 

 ped open, to thrust his feet into it, hoping thereby 

 to be cured of a malady that had tormented him. 

 One of the most infallible signs of a degraded 

 state of morals in any country, is the corrupt ad 

 ministration of justice. As specimens of Polish 

 justice, Mr. Neale mentions the case of a mer 

 chant of Warsaw, whom it cost 1400 ducats to 

 procure the conviction and execution of two rob 

 bers who had plundered him; and another case, 

 still more flagrant, that of a peasant who had 

 apprehended an assassin, and who, on taking him 

 to the Staroste, was coolly dismissed with the 

 prisoner, and the corpse of the murdered person 

 which he had brought in his wagon; because he 

 had not ten ducats the fee demanded by the 

 magistrate for his interference. &quot; During the 

 reign of Stanislaus Poniatowsky, a petty noble 

 having refused to resign to Count Thisenhaus 

 his small estate, the Count invited him to dinner, 

 as if desirous of amicably adjusting the affair; 

 and whilst the knight, in the pride of his heart 

 at such unexpected honour, assiduously plied the 

 bottle, the Count despatched some hundreds of 

 peasants with axes, ploughs, and wagons, order 

 ing the village, which consisted only of a few 

 wooden buildings, to be pulled down, ihe mate 

 rials carried away, and the plough to be passed 

 over the ground which the village had occupied. 

 This was accordingly done. The nobleman, on 

 his return home in the evening, could find neither 

 road, house, nor village. The master and his 

 servant wer alike bewildered, and knew not 

 whether they were dreaming or had lost the 

 power of discrimination ; but their surprise and 

 a&amp;lt;jony wrre deemed so truly humorous, that the 

 whole court was delighted with the joke !&quot; How 

 depraved must be the state of moral feeling, when 

 the injustice inflicted upon fellow-creatures, and 

 the miseries they endure, become the subjects of 

 merriment and derision! &quot;The morals of the 

 people of Poland,&quot; says Mr. Neale, &quot; were, and 

 continue to be, nearly at the lowest point of de 

 basement. Female chastity is a phenomenon ; 

 while the male sex are proportionally profligate. 

 Drunkenness, gluttony, and sensuality, orevail 

 31 



to a degree unknown in other countries in Eu 

 rope.&quot; 



The following extract from Mr. Howison s 

 &quot; Foreign Scenes and Tr veiling Recreations,&quot; 

 will convey some idea of the state of morals in 

 the island of Cuba. &quot; Nothing can be worse,&quot; 

 says Mr. H., &quot; than the state of society in Ha 

 vana. The lower classes are all alike dissolute 

 and unprincipled. Assassinations are so fre 

 quent that they excite little attention ; and as 

 sault and robbery are matters of course, when a 

 man passes alone and at night through a solitary 

 quarter of the town. Several assassinations 

 take place in the streets every week.&quot; This de 

 praved and lawless state of things may be ascribed 

 to three causes : the inefficiency of the police ; 

 the love of gaming and dissipation which pre 

 vails among the lower orders ; and the facility 

 with which absolution of the greatest crimes may 

 be obtained from the priests. In fact, the Ca 

 tholic religion, as it now exists in Cuba, tends 

 to encourage rather than to check vice. We 

 shall suppose, for example, that a man makes 

 himself master of 100 dollars by robbing or by 

 murdering another ; and that the church grants 

 him absolution for half the sum thus lawlessly 

 obtained ; it is evident that he will gain 50 dol 

 lars by the whole transaction, and think himself 

 as innocent as he was before he committed the 

 crime. No man need mount the Havana scaf 

 fold, whatever be his crime, if he has the means 

 of ministering to the rapacity of the church, and 

 of bribing the civil authorities. A poor friend 

 less criminal is executed in a few days after sen 

 tence is pronounced upon him ; but a persoR of 

 wealth and influence generally manages to put 

 off capital punishment for a series of years, and 

 at last get it commuted to fine and imprisonment. 

 Of these depraved practices, Mr. Hewison states 

 several striking examples. Those statements of 

 Mr. H. in reference to the moral state of Cuba, 

 I find corroborated by a short account of this isl 

 and in the Monthly Magazine for March, 1820, 

 page 120. &quot; They act here very frequently 

 those sacred mysteries which so delighted our 

 good forefathers. I have witnessed (says the 

 writer) the triumph of the Ave Maria, a tragi 

 comedy, which closes with the sudden appear 

 ance, in the midst of a theatre, of a chivalrous 

 worthy, mounted on a real horse, shaking at the 

 end of a lance the bloody head of an infidel. 

 This horrid exhibition excited a titter of enjoy 

 ment in all the spectators. The ladies, in particu 

 lar, seemed to be highly entertained, no fainting 

 fits, no nervous attacks. How could a mere fic 

 tion agonize the blunt feelings of women, har 

 dened by the spectacle of bull-fights, and almost 

 every day meeting with the dead body of some 

 human being who has been assassinated ?&quot; ^ 



There is no situation in which human beingt 

 can be placed, where we should n ore naturaUj 

 expect the manifestation of benevole at affection*, 



