io2 The National Geographic Magazine 



. 



No. 5. A Section of the Colon Park, Habana, when the United States Officers 



Assumed Control of the City 



When the United States troops en- 

 tered Habana the building shown in 

 picture No. 2, though intended for a 

 hospital, was notorious as probably the 

 most vile building hygienically in the 

 world. Between 60 and 70 per cent of 

 the patients carried there died within 

 its walls. Even the American doctors 

 shunned the place, and soldiers passing 

 literally held their breath. The first 

 thing the American officers did was to 

 cleanse it from top to bottom ; then they 

 put several thick coats of whitewash on 

 its walls, and made the building, which 

 is as large as two city blocks, as spick 

 and span as a Yankee kitchen. The 

 hospital is now used as a school-house 

 for 700 children. The top floor has been 

 remodeled into school-rooms, and fur- 

 nished throughout with the latest Amer- 

 ican improvements. A gymnasium, with 



a complete equipment, was added, and 

 the basement turned into a warehouse. 

 Today there is not a healthier spot in 

 Habana than this building, which for 

 years had been a hot-house of vice and 

 disease. 



The hovels on the left, in picture 

 No. 3; were formerly breeding dens of 

 disease. They had been built on pub- 

 lic parking b}' some investor who had 

 bribed the Spanish officials to overlook 

 his appropriation of public property. 

 The miserable huts were crowded with 

 the refuse of humanity, and the investor 

 and disease had reaped equally rich 

 harvests. One of the first things the 

 new administration did was to tear 

 down the row. Picture No. 4 shows 

 the transformation. The high wall on 

 the left is a part of the old city wall, of 

 which only this small section remains. 



