Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/715

Rh CUBA G81 as a vegetable, and the bitter converted into bread after its poisonous juice has been extracted. The sweet potato, and other farinaceous roots, are also common. Indian corn is indigenous, and rice is extensively culti vated ; cocoa or chocolate is also grown. The chief agricultural products of Cuba are, however, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. The &quot; ingenios &quot; or sugar estates, with large buildings and mills for sugar-refining and distillation of rum, are the most important industrial establishments of the island, varying in extent from 500 to as much as 10,000 acres. Of late years, partly from the effects of the insurrection, and partly from the rapidly extending cultivation of beet-root sugar in other countries, the demand for Cubau sugar has been diminishing, and the sugar estates have not flourished. The United States take about 70 or 80 per cent, of the sugar grown in Cuba, the greater part of the remainder passing to Europe. The quantity exported in 1873 from the ports of Havana, Matanzas, Cardenas, Sagua la Grande, Remedies, Nuevitas, Santiago de Cuba, Trinidad, and Cienfuegos exceeded 600,000 tons, of a value of about 12,000,000. Besides this 242,000 tons of molasses were exported. After the &quot; ingenios &quot; the &quot; cafetales &quot; or coffee estates are the most important establishments. They vary in extent from 100 to upwards of 1000 acres, or even more in the mountain districts, the number of hands employed being as high as 100 in the low country, but generally averaging fifty or sixty negroes to 1000 acres. The first coffee plantation was established in 1748, the seeds having been brought from San Domingo. Though at one time coffee was sent out from Cuba in enormous quantities, it does not now figure largely in the exports. Tobacco is indigenous to Cuba, and its excellent quality is celebrated in all parts of the world. Tb.9 estates devoted to its cultivation are scattered over the greater part of the island, but the finest qualities of tobacco are those grown in the country west of Havana, known as the &quot; vuelta abajo.&quot; In 1873, 224,765, 000 cigars were exported, besides nearly 13,500,000 ft&amp;gt; of leaf, to the United States, Great Britain, Hamburg and Bremen, Holland, France, and Spain. Among the other industrial establishments of Cuba may be mentioned the numerous cattle farms, cotton plantations, fruit and vegetable farms, chocolate plantations, and &quot; colmenaries &quot; or farms devoted to the production of honey and wax. orts The imports consist mainly of jerked beef from South America, codfish from the British North American pro vinces, flour from Spain, rice from Carolina, Spain, and the East Indies, wine and olive oil from Spain, boards far boxes and barrels from North America, coils from Europe and North America, and petroleum from the United States, besides large quantities of British, German, and Belgian manufactures and hardwares. Heavy differential duties in favour of goods Imported into Cuba in Spanish ships are in force, so that the greater part of the imports arrive in these. Cattle are imported from Florida and the coasts of the Mexican Gulf. There are no manufactur ing industries of importance in the island. nation Education is in a remarkably backward state in Cuba. In the absence of recent statistics, it is estimated that of ion. perhaps 100,000 children of free parents, not a tenth part receive lettered education of any kind ; and even among the higher classes of society liberal education is very far from being universally diffused. A few literary and scientific men, wherever educated, are however to be found both in the higher and middle rants, and, previous to the disturbances which began in 1868, the question of public instruction excited much interest among the Creole popula tion, an impetus to this having been given by the came liberal portion of the population which originated the Sodedad Economica of Havana and Santiago de Cuba, an institution which has for its object the advancement of education and popular industry. At Havana is the royal university with a rector and thirty professors and medical and law schools, as well as an institution called the Royal College of Havana. There is a similar establishment at Puerto Principe, in the eastern interior; and both at Havana and Santiago de Cuba there is a college in which the branches of ecclesiastical education arc taught, together with the humanities and philosophy. Besides this there are several private schools, but none are accessible to the masses. The inhabitants of Havana can scarcely be said to have any literature a few daily and weekly journals, under a rigid censorship, supply almost all the taste for letters in the capital. The Roman Catholic is the only religion tolerated by Government. At first there was but one diocese, which included not only the whole island, but also Louisiana and the two Floridas, all under one bishop. In 1788 Cuba was divided into two dioceses, each embracing half the island. The eastern diocese, or that of Santiago de Cuba, was in 1804 erected into an archbishopric, while that of Havana still remains under a bishop. Politically the island is a province of Spain ruled over Divisions directly by a governor-captain-general of the class of lieutenant-general of the Spanish army, whose authority for the time being is despotic. He is appointed by the Crown, the term of office being generally from three to five years, is responsible only to the sovereign of Spain, and is supreme head of the civil, military, and ecclesiastical jurisdictions of Cuba. The captain-general is assisted by governors of departments, who have under their orders the lieutenant-governors, commanders of the thirty-two juris dictions of the island, each of which is subdivided into &quot; partidos &quot; or captaincies. In each city or town a municipal body termed the ayuniainento, or town council, is at the head of affairs, but municipal representation exists only in appearance. The military division is into two departments- that of the west with Havana for its capital, and that of the east with Santiago de Cuba for its head-quarters. The boundary between these departments, hich is also the limit of the dioceses, starts from the brook Yana in front of the eastern part of the island of Yuriguano, and terminates near Sabana-la-Mar. The judicial division comprises the whole island, as the territory of the &quot; Real Audiencia PretorJal,&quot; or supreme court. In each of the twenty-six judicial districts into which this is subdivided there is an &quot; alcalde mayor,&quot; having for auxiliary delegates the ordinary alcaldes,&quot; or local judges. The &quot; Real Audiencia,&quot; holding session at Havana, is a species of council of state which the captain- general consults on all difficult matters of administration. The maritime division is subject to a commander-general, and consists of five stations or provinces, with their centres at Havana, Trinidad, San Juan de los Remedios, Nuevitas, and Santiago de Cuba. In popular language the different portions of the island are distinguished as the Vuelta Aba jo, or the portion extending from the meridian of Havana to the western extremity of the island ; the Vuelta Arriba, from the meridian of Havana towards the east as far as Cienfuegos ; Las Cinco Villas from the meridian of Cienfuegos to that of Santo Espiritu ; and Tierra Adentro from that of Santa Espiritu to Holguin and the extreme east of the island. The Crown revenues of the island are the rentas Finance. maritimas, including duties on imports, exports, and tonnage, and the local or municipal duties levied at some of the custom-houses ; the impuestas interiores, including the tax on home manufactures, the sale of stamped paper, the profits derived from the lottery, and the impost on cock-fights ; deductions from the rentas ecdesiasticas, XI. 86