CHANGES UNDER AMERICAN RULE. 73 and a much needed reform in the discipline and sanitation of prisons was effected as soon as possible. Many important changes have been made in the Spanish system of administering the laws. The writ of habeas corpus and trial by jury are estab lished institutions in the island. The theory of the guilt of an accused person is no longer maintained. Ex parte investigations and the incomunicado are abolished. PORTO RICO. THE INHABITANTS, PAST AND PRESENT. An Account of the Early Inhabitants Social Customs Their Form of Dwellings Survives - Their Arts Were Simple but Difficult — The Religion of the Aborigines — The Indians Had a Theory of Immortality - The Areito a National Ceremony - Women Were Prominent in the Ceremonies and Pastimes The Inception of Slavery - Suppression of Slavery by Various Nations- The Island is Densely Populated - The Extreme Illiteracy in Porto Rico -The Improvident but Happy Gibaro - The Limitations of the Porto Rican Peasant. - The aborigines of Porto Rico belonged to the Carib race and differed little, if at all, from the natives of the other islands composing the Great Antilles. Columbus distinctly states that "in all these islands there is no difference of physiognomy, of manners, or of language." We have no statement of the population at the time of the Spanish occupation on the authority of one contemporary with that event, and later estimates differ greatly. The venerable Las Casas, who wrote about the middle of the sixteenth century, believed the inhabitants at the time of the discovery numbered six hundred thousand, but his figures are not generally ae |