94 
THE STANDARD GUIDE. 
Albisu in the Centro Asturiano club house, east of Central Pane, de¬ 
voted to Spanish plays; and the Marti at Dragones and Zulueta streets, 
surrounded by a garden and having vast expanses of Venetian blinds to 
insure coolness in summer. Theatre tickets are sold in booths on the 
sidewalk in front of the theatres, and at some theatres tickets are pur¬ 
chased for single acts only; if one wishes to remain after one act, an¬ 
other ticket must be secured. 
Havana is the capital of the Republic. The Congress consists of the 
Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate Building is on 
O’Reilly street, facing the Plaza de Armas. Each one of the six 
Provinces of Pinar del Rio, Havana, Matanzas, Santa Clara, Puerto 
Principe and Santiago de Cuba, sends four Senators, who are elected 
for terms of eight years. A Senator must be a native born Cuban, and 
must have attained the age of thirty-five. The House meets in the Hall 
of Representatives on Oficio street, near the Machina. There is one 
Representative for each 25,000 individuals and for an additional fraction 
over 12,500. The term is four years. A Representative must be a native 
born Cuban or a naturalized Cuban, who has resided in Cuba at least 
eight years from his naturalization, and must have attained the age of 
twenty-five. The President of the Republic, elected for a term of four 
years, must be a native born Cuban, or one who has served in the Cuban 
Army in its Wars of Independence for at least ten years, and must have 
attained the age of forty. 
The National Library (Biblioteca Nacional) was established by the 
Military Government in 1902, in La Fuerza, but was afterward installed 
in the rooms which it now occupies in the building called La Maestranza 
in Calle Chacon. It is open to the public every day in the Week, Sundays 
included, from eight in the morning till five in the evening. The Library 
was founded with 3,000 documents of all classes, collected and brought 
over from Paris and London, by its founder and director, Senor Domingo 
Figarola-Caneda. The number of books approximates 19,000; the collec¬ 
tion is chiefly of works relating to the history of Cuba; in which respect 
it is second only to the British Museum. Among the collections is the 
library of the Conde de Fernandina, embracing many fine examples of 
early printing, some of the volumes bearing dates 1496, 1582 and 1635; 
the books are richly bound by famous Paris binders, and comprise 4,000 
volumes which cost $20,000. Another library acquired was that of Vidal 
Morales y Morales, representing twenty-five years’ collecting of works 
relating to Cuba and Spanish-American history. It contains a Las Casas, 
printed at Seville in 1552; Benzoni’s “History of the New World,” printed 
in 1565; the dramas of Heredia, the poems of Placido, and other treasures 
of Cuban literature; in all, 3,000 volumes. 
The Library of the Sociedad Economica at No. 62 Dragones street 
