Pastor People’s Church, Minneapolis, Minn.
Many are the travelers, like Pantagruel, in search of the
_Dive Bouteille_—Holy Bottle, and who believe in its oracular
utterance—“Drink!” The man who holds in veneration the memory of Noah,
notices on entering Havana that the harbor entrance is “bottle-necked,”
and well “fortified”—with booze. The “Fountain of Youth” here is not
water, but “cask”ades of wine and beer, etc. However, one needs the purse
of Croesus, for if you want to drink you must pay what the bar wants to
charge—a price as exorbitant as smuggled liquor brings in the States.
If you remonstrate with the bartender, you may send for the manager, as
my friend did, and have him say, “Don’t bother me—tell your troubles to
a policeman.” If you are mad and tired of Cuba, go to Guadeloupe and
Martinique in the French West Indies where the rent-hog is unknown;
where a good room rents for $7 a month; where a course dinner, with a
bottle of wine, at the best hotel will cost you only 40 cents; where rum
punch is three cents a glass, wine five cents, and the best brands of
champagne, $1.50 to $2.00 a quart. In Cuba you pay $2.50 for a bottle of
wine, and $12 for a quart of champagne.
Pascal wrote that man was the “glory and scum of the universe.” Much
of the scum of the United States has floated to Havana. The lure of
“spiritual” elixirs (there is a vermouth in town known as “Vaticano”) has
brought a “bum” element to the island. Havana has become a convention
city for crooks who frequent the race-track, saloons and gambling
hells. Most appropriately has the outline of Cuba been compared to the
hammer-headed shark. Fights and brawls are common; city jails are full
of American drunks and toughs. Cuba has imported laborers from Haiti
to raise cane, but the worst “Cain-raisers” have come from the United
States. Sterne said, “An Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen”—an
American does not care to journey here to meet such Americans.
The tourist, robbed right and left, need have little fear of the Havana
señorita stealing away his heart. Her beauty is largely mythical. As
a rule, the Cuban woman looks as if she had used a barrel of flour to
powder her face, and her body is built on barrel-hoop lines. To powder
she adds paint—mamma and her daughters are about the only paintings one
finds in town. After viewing and reviewing these Spanish “beauties”
(so inferior to our American beauties in the garden of love), one does
not feel inclined to purchase the books sold here in the stores: “The
Art of Kissing in Twelve Lessons”; “The Art of Caressing in Twelve
Lessons.” Taken all in all, the Havana “angel” is an adorable, endurable
inutility—an expensive luxury on which to hang fine clothes and diamonds.
Pythagoras made it a rule to review every night what he had done during
the day. Were she to follow his example, I fear she would soon be
through, for she appears to be master of the art of doing nothing that is
important.
Havana harbors many “ladies” of that species one calls ladies only
between quotation marks. God made Cuba, but the Devil invented some of
Havana’s pastimes. The Cuban is “revolting” in his pleasures as well as
in his politics. Streets along the water-front are lined by open bars
and brothels brilliantly lighted—a mistake, because most of the inmates
resemble female Calibans.
The witchery of the old time wanton is no more. With Flaubert one
laments the passing of the _fille de joie_: “In olden times she was
beautiful when she walked up the steps leading to the temple, when on her
shell-like feet fell the golden fringe of her tunic, or when she lounged
among Persian cushions, twirling her collar of cameos and chatting with
the wise men and philosophers. She was beautiful when she stood naked on
the threshold of her _cella_ in the street of Suburra, under the rosin
torchlight that blazed in the night, slowly chanting her Campanian lay,
while from the Tiber came the refrains of the orgies. She was beautiful,
too, in her old house of the _Cité_ behind the Gothic windows, among the
noisy students, when without fear of the sergeants, they struck the oaken
tables with their pewter mugs. She was beautiful when she leaned over
the green cloth and coveted the gold of the provincials; then she wore
high-heels and had a small waist and a large wig which shed its perfumed
powder on her shoulders, a rose over her ear and a patch on her cheek.
Fear not that she will ever return, for she is dead, quite dead.”
Ten miles from town is situated the notorious “Casino” which is trying to
emulate Monte Carlo with its glare, gold and girls. If you win anything
there, you are lucky to get back to town with it without being murdered
or robbed. Recently a young man, who made a fortune over night here,
disappeared, and all they found of him was his leg. Not long ago a
stark-naked woman was found dead near the Casino. The mystery has not yet
been cleared up. At the gate entrance of this palatial gambling-hell, I
noticed policemen taking the license number of every auto that arrived,
to keep track of the chauffeurs, many of whom are crooks and cut-throats.
If you do survive, and reach Havana in safety, the size of your bill
makes you feel very “automobilious.” Sad but true, it is easier to locate
some of our United States diplomatic officials at the Casino at night,
than in their offices during the day.
The Havana Oriental race-track has a bad name even among sports. There
was no exhibition of fine, fast horses or fast time, simply a fast set
who threw the races to the bettors who gave the most graft. Boozing,
betting and profanity were the characteristics of the human race at the
horse-race. Yet foreign, literary, dramatic and musical reviews are
crowded out of newspaper columns for daily ads. and write-ups on the
elevating amusement of the Casino and race-track.
One cannot make an inventory of paradise in Havana without mentioning
the carnival. At the Malecon I watched the Señoritas throw kisses and
confetti—the confetti was six inches deep—and I wondered how it would
be cleared up till I remembered the number of “rakes” there were on the
boulvards. The Cuban’s idea of heaven is an endless Mardi Gras where he
may throw star-dust confetti and waltz with the angels. However, the
Havana carnival lacks the spontaneity and gayety of Nice, Venice and
Martinique, it being more of a fashion show.
The populace takes little note of time save in the dance. All society,
from A to Z, thronged the theatres and club-houses where they revolved
like automata on a music-box. I witnessed one ball in a small hall where
six policemen were stationed to keep the dancers within the bounds of
decency.
Cuba has declared a moratorium, yet the people are neither paying each
other nor the United States, and act as if sugar were up to 25 cents a
pound. They cry for financial aid, yet I witnessed a Sunday carnival
where $75,000 was foolishly thrown away like so much confetti.
The Havana youth is a dissipated dude who improves his mind by strutting
and staring on the piazzas, and accosting women with insulting looks and
words. With him cursing passes for rhetoric. His time and money are well
spent at race-track, cock-pit, roulette table and the harlot’s house. He
is familiar with all liquors except the stimulating wine of progress.
God has made Cuba beautiful with her altar-like mountains, smile of the
sea, waving palms, fragrant fruits and flowers and sweet cane-fields,
but Satan has entered this Eden and left his slimy trail. Cuba, “The
Pearl of the Antilles,” has been trampled under the hoofs of human swine.
Too often the C in Cuban character stands for cupidity, carnality,
crookedness, cabals, charlatanism, “Caramba” cursing, and contempt for
Americans.
Lot left Sodom and was saved. As I sailed away from Havana, I said with
Solomon, “Vanity, vanity, all is Havanaty.”
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