754 



SAN DOMINGO. 



or 24,500 each. The budget of the six universities 

 amounts to 1,371,043, which fixes the part of each at 

 228,509 rubles. On the 15th September last our six 

 universities contained 4,084 immatriculated students 

 and 557 free pupils, distributed among the different 

 faculties : 43 per cent, belonged to the legal faculty ; 

 24 per cent, to the medical ; 27 per. cent to the sci- 

 entific ; 6J per cent, to the philological ; 2 per cent, to 

 the theological faculty of Dorpat ; and i per cent, to 

 the faculty of Oriental languages of St. Petersburg." 



Conflagrations continued to desolate the whole 

 extent of the empire. The population were 

 almost always warned beforehand that on 

 a certain day their town or village would 

 he set on fire if a certain sum of money was 

 not deposited at a stated place. The threat 



rarely fails to he executed. Krementchoug, 

 a town in the south of Russia, had to cou- 

 lend against twenty fires during a short space 

 of time. According to an official announce- 

 ment, there were 120 " conflagrations " in the 

 three provinces of Kieff, Volhynia, and Podo- 

 lia, from the 15th of June to the loth of July. 

 No less than 337 houses (of continental size) 

 were destroyed by this calamity, which affected 

 14 towns and 106 villages, inflicting a loss of 

 300,000 rubles upon the poor inhabitants. Fires 

 of smaller extent are not included in these fig- 

 ures. In the kingdom of Poland proper six 

 towns and thirty villages were almost entirely 

 burnt to the ground within two weeks. 



S 



SAN DOMINGO, or the Dominican Repub- 

 lic, a State of the West Indies, comprising the 

 eastern portion of the Island of Hayti. Area, 

 22,000 square miles ; population about 200,000.* 

 In January, 1865, the new Spanish ministry 

 of Narvaez, seeing the impossibility of continu- 

 ing any longer the war against San Domingo, 

 proposed to the Cortes a bill, repealing the act 

 of 1861, by which that country was annexed 

 to Spain. This bill was, on April 1st, adopted 

 by the Chamber of Deputies, after an animated 

 debate, by a vote of 155 to 68, and on April 

 29th, by the Senate, by 93 votes against 39. On 

 May 5th, a royal decree was issued, announc- 

 ing the abandonment by Spam of San Domingo. 



It only remained to withdraw the Spanish 

 garrisons from the few strongholds of which 

 they had possession, in particular San Do- 

 mingo City. The Dominican Government at 

 Santiago sent down commissioners to arrange 

 this with the Spanish Governor in due order. 

 Nearly every thing was settled to mutual 

 satisfaction, and the treaty was even signed 

 and sent to the Dominican Executive for rati- 

 fication, when suddenly in July new difficul- 

 ties arose. The retiring Governor-General, 

 Don Jose de la Gandara, insisted that the treaty 

 of evacuation should take the form of a " high 

 and voluntary act of generosity " on the part 

 of Spain, and that the Dominican Government 

 should register a national declaration that the 

 war which Spain had been waging for three 

 years was just and lawful, and that she now 

 retired "purely and solely out of a noble and 

 disinterested respect to the preference of the 

 Dominican people for an independent nation- 

 ality." The Dominican Government utterly re- 

 fused to subscribe to such a declaration, which, 

 among other evil consequences, would admit 

 by implication that Spain might demand the 

 repayment of what she had expended in her 

 efforts to conquer the republic. In the course 

 of the conferences one of the Dominican com- 

 missioners said they could not admit that " the 



* Compare ANXTAL CYCLOPAEDIA for 1SW. 



independence which they had painfully achieved 

 at the cost of long and terrible sacrifices was 

 the gift of any power but God's high grace," 

 and added that li the united Dominican people, 

 without regard to rank or color, had planted 

 the white cross of the republic on the principle 

 enunciated by the Great Mother of free nations, 

 that America belongs to Americans, and we 

 will endure all our trials over again sooner than 

 desert it." Gandara replied that he would en- 

 close the Dominican republic in a fiery ring 

 of ruin and desolation by means of a perpetual 

 blockade, and incessant raids on all its forts and 

 vast towns. Soon after Gandara accepted, 

 however, the propositions submitted by the 

 Government of San Domingo, and the Spanisli 

 troops evacuated the whole island. 



The administration of the Provisional Presi- 

 dent, Polanco, was overthrown in January, 

 1865. In March, General Pimentel, one of the 

 most successful leaders in the war against 

 Spain, was constitutionally elected to the Pro- 

 visional Presidency of the Republic, which was 

 to terminate three months after the Spanish 

 evacuation. A new pronunciamento broke out 

 in the city of San Domingo, on the 4th of Au- 

 gust. At a large meeting of the citizens, the 

 further participation of General Pimentel iu 

 the administration was repudiated, and General 

 J. M. Cabral was commissioned Protector 

 of the Republic to summon a national conven- 

 tion for the definite arrangement of the public 

 service. General Cabral addressed a letter to 

 General Pimentel, proposing an amicable con- 

 ference, with the view of mutually arranging 

 all questions at issue. These proposals were 

 not appreciated, but in the mean time all tlio 

 important towns, including Cibao, acceded to 

 the St. Domingo programme, in consequence of 

 which General Pimentel resigned. General 

 Cabral, on accepting the Presidency, issued a 

 proclamation, assigning that he did so on 

 account of the gravity of the situation, be- 

 lieving it to be his duty to sacrifice himself 

 on the altar of his country. His programme 

 of government he asserted to be comprised iu 



