in private families, under proper pledges for their care and education, secured by careful investigation beforehand, and afterwards by systematic personal inspection. For the children still remaining, a thorough system of industrial education which will fit them for self-support has been inaugurated.

The hospitals have been supplied with medicines and surgical apparatus and attendance, and trained nurses brought from the United States are engaged in the instruction of trained nurses in Cuba. At the civil hospital No. 1 in Havana there are five American trained nurses, and a training school for nurses has been started for women with accommodations for forty scholars. At the civil hospital in Matanzas there are four American nurses and a training school for nurses with accommodations for thirty scholars. At the civil hospital in Cienfuegos there is one American trained nurse and about sixteen scholars; at Remedios, one American trained nurse and eighteen scholars.

Each of the charitable institutions is limited in its expenditures, in excess of such funds as it may have, to a carefully considered appropriation of insular funds, the expenditure of which is subject to regular and systematic inspection. Unless it were in the Mercedes Hospital in Havana, there was not a place in Cuba at the time of American occupation to which a patient could go for either medical or surgical treatment with any reasonable prospect of proper facilities and care.

The condition of the insane was particularly distressing. They were confined in cells in the jails all over the island, filthy and ragged, and treated literally like wild beasts. All these unfortunates have been collected and taken to the large insane asylum in Havana, which has been put in good order, and they are cared for in accordance with the dictates of modern humanity.

The prisons in the island were filled to overflowing with wretched creatures living in indescribable filth and squalor.

An early inspection of the woman's prison in Havana disclosed the fact that the women had no other place to sleep than on the floor, and were unable to appear in a body because they were without clothes to cover their nakedness; and they came before the inspector one by one, passing the same garment from one to another.

The cruelty of these conditions is more impressive from the fact that many of the unfortunate inmates had never been tried, or convicted of any offense. As the simplest way of dealing with that evil, a board of pardons was constituted in January, which visited all the prisons and examined the inmates. They found many who had been for long periods waiting trial, and in one instance this period had extended for eleven years. were charged could be ascertained, a large part of these people had been punished far more severely, whether they were innocent or guilty, than they could have been upon conviction.

So far as the offenses with which they

The intolerable delays of criminal procedure which thus punished the innocent equally with the guilty, and punished both without any opportunity for trial, have been to a great extent obviated by the establishment of correctional courts throughout the island, modeled upon the court which, under the direction of Captain Pitcher, has proved so successful in Havana, and in which petty offenses are summarily dealt with and disposed of, and the innocent have an opportunity to be promptly relieved from prosecution.

As a further safeguard against the recurrence of the evils described, an order has been made providing for the writ of habeas corpus to go into effect in December. The character and use of that writ do not yet seem to be fully understood by the Cubans, who are quite unfamiliar with it, but it will doubtless in time become with them, as it is with us, an effective instrument for the protection of liberty.

One of the results of these changes of procedure is that many of the prisons in the island are now wholly without inmates. Many other amendments of the law, improvements of the courts, and procedure, and reforms of specific abuses have been accomplished. All these things have been done with the concurrence and mainly through the instrumentality of Cubans, and in such a way that the Cubans have been learning how to do them and how to maintain the improved conditions and continue the reforms when the government comes entirely into their hands.

PUBLIC WORKS

There has been great activity in public works. Our officers have been renovating, repairing, and reconstructing public buildings, building extensive and enduring roads and sewers and waterworks, and inspecting and cleansing private and public buildings and paving streets in most of the cities and towns of the island. . .

A number of large light-houses have been constructed, beacons have been set, and harbors have been buoyed, and in every proper field of public enterprise there has been the greatest activity on the part of Cubans under American guidance in doing things for the public interest, which have been wholly neglected for the past hundred years.

The tariff has been completely revised, and an independent treasury for the island has been established in which the revenues of the island are deposited and kept as they are received.

The revenues for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1900, amounted to $17,333,484.10, as against $7,397,148.57 for the preceding six months. The revival of industry continues; the tobacco crop is large and fine; the area planted in sugar cane is continually extended; the production of fruit at the

eastern end of the island is increasing; the mines of Santiago are in full operation; labor is in demand at good wages.

Curiously enough, now that Spanish sovereignty has departed from the island a current of Spanish immigration is setting in. More than forty thousand Spaniards, chiefly hardy and industrious people from the north of Spain, have come to the island during the year, and it is estimated that before the end of December the number will have reached fifty thousand. They are useful and welcome additions to the industry of the island.

Only doubt as to the stability of the future government and uncertainty as to the continuance of a market for her products retards the influx of capital and the development of Cuba's extraordinary resources.

FURTHER PROGRESS IN CIVIL GOVERNMENT

Extract from the Report of the Secretary of War for 19011

The government of the island of Cuba during the past year has been peaceful and orderly. There has been no occasion for interference by the United States forces with the ordinary administration of law. Following the plan of steadily training the people in performing the duties of government, the organization of the rural guard has been perfected, and that body has been placed under one head, and now includes a total of 1,300 men and officers, armed with modern carbines and well mounted. The municipal police, which during the formative stage were supported from the general fund, have been placed finally upon the proper and intended footing of support by the municipalities themselves. In order that upon the withdrawal of our troops the island may not be without a force competent to take charge of her coast forti1 Page 36.

fications, several companies of Cuban troops have been organized, which, while maintained at insular expense, are assigned to our coast artillery companies in the island as second platoons for the purpose of instruction and discipline, and to fit them for the duties of coast defense.

A gradual reduction is being made in the excessive number of municipalities in the western provinces for the purpose of lightening taxation and increasing efficiency. There has been a great reduction in the number of asylums and pauper institutions. Beggars are practically unknown in the island. There are supported by the state thirty-four hospitals, containing 2,844 beds. Six training schools for female nurses have been established under the tuition of American trained nurses, with Cuban girls as pupils, with regular courses, examinations, and degrees. The Government training schools for boys and girls have been enlarged. The bureau for placing indigent children, mentioned in my last report, has been thoroughly established, and has during the year returned over 1,200 children to their relatives and placed 437 in other families. There are still 2,010 orphans under the care and supervision of the state. The lepers of the island have been gathered into two institutions, and the total number under treatment is now 134.

Six private institutions assisted by the state contain 362 aged poor. Extensive improvements have been made in the insane asylums, and they now contain 835 inmates. The prisons have been repaired and improved, and each jail has been provided with a physician and the necessary medicines. School instruction has been inaugurated in the larger jails. Extensive repairs of streets and sanitary work have been done in Havana, Santiago, Cienfuegos, and Santa Clara. Sewerage and paving plans for Havana have been completed and advertised for, and the contract has been awarded. Plans have been prepared for harbor improvements at Matanzas,