56 
THE STANDARD GUIDE. 
CARCEL AND PRESIDIO. 
Near the foot of the Prado, and occupying one of the most prominent 
sites in the city, is the immense yellow building of the Havana Carcel, 
which is not infrequently mistaken by tourists for the Palace. It is used as 
a Carcel or city jail, with entrance on the Prado, and a Presidio or peni¬ 
tentiary for the island, entrance on Zulueta street, and also contains 
an audiencia or court room. It was built in 1839 by Governor-General 
1 aeon, chiefly by convict labor of chain gangs made up of runaway 
slaves, white malefactors and Carlist prisoners from Spain; and it is 
recorded that 1 aeon financed the undertaking with certain public funds 
which, before his time, had been diverted by dishonest officials. The 
building is 300 by 240 feet, and surrounds a large interior court or patio, 
which is filled with shrubbery. It has room for 5,000 men; there have 
been at times 1,000 prisoners within its walls. There were 600 here when 
the Americans came to Havana, many of whom had been incarcerated 
for years without trial. One hundred of this class were released, and 
of sixty others the sentences were commuted. The Americans cleaned 
up the dreadfully filthy building, and introduced many reforms of 
administration. The Carcel contains the garrote, which is the Cuban 
instrument of capital punishment. It consists of a semi-circular iron 
band or collar, which fits the front part of the victim’s neck; and has in 
the back of it a screw, which, working on the principle of the screw of 
a letter-copying press, presses against the first vertebra near the 
junction of the skull. A sudden turn of the screw crushes the bone and 
spinal cord, and death is instantaneous. While the garrote is held in 
universal infamy, largely for the reason that so many martyrs of the 
Cuban cause were executed by it, it is nevertheless a merciful instru¬ 
ment of death. Garroting is pronounced by physicians to be more humane 
than hanging. Executions formerly were public spectacles. To turn to 
lighter things, it may be recalled that in the old days in Havana male¬ 
factors were scourged in public, the victim being paraded through the 
