236 CUBA 



vast'horde of subordinate officials, all Spaniards, who collect the 

 customs and attend to other minor executive duties. 



The lower classes of the Habana male population — porters, 

 draymen, and clerks — are organized into a dangerous and often- 

 times uncontrollable military force, known as the volunteers, 

 who, while never having been known to take the field, are a 

 serious menace to the peace of the city, being feared equally by 

 the authorities, over whose heads they wave the threat of mutiny, 

 especially upon any indication of granting reforms, and by the 

 resident and unarmed Cubans, over whom they hold the threat 

 of massacre. Up to date the record of this organized mob has 

 been a series of horrible crimes, such as shooting down a crowd 

 of peaceable citizens as they emerged from the theater, firing into 

 the office and dining-room of a hotel, assaulting the residences 

 of Cuban gentlemen, and in 1871 forcing the authorities to exe- 

 cute 43 medical students, all boys under twenty, because one of 

 them had been accused of scratching the glass plate on a vault 

 containing the remains of a volunteer. Fifteen thousand volun- 

 teers witnessed with exultation this ignoble execution. 



While the primary functions of the government have been to 

 attend to the prerogatives of the Crown and the collection of rev- 

 enues, its attention has been largely devoted to the personal en- 

 richment of the officials through misfeasance and the prevention 

 of the secession of the island. It has practically ignored the 

 other functions of government, such as the collection of statistics, 

 the promotion of education, and the establishment of public works 

 and proper public sanitation. Few, if any, educational institu- 

 tions have been erected at public expense ; no public highways 

 have been constructed, nor have any improvements of a public 

 character been made outside of the city of Habana. Even when 

 the Cubans have undertaken such improvements, they have been 

 heavily taxed for the benefit of the Spanish officials. The ad- 

 ministration of Cuba is and has been since the settlement of the 

 island an absolute military despotism on the part of the mother 

 country. At periods, dependent upon the personality of the cap- 

 tain-general, there have been epochs of peace and prosperity, but 

 since the middle of the present century the island has been in a 

 state of insurrection, dormant or eruptive, accompanied by a 

 growing hatred between the governing and the governed classes, 

 with constantly increasing restrictions upon the latter. At times 

 the revolting people were reduced to subjection by promises of 

 local self-government, which have invariably been broken. 



