Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 58.djvu/497

Rh their Spanish forefathers. This fact is attributed principally to the enervating effect of the climate, hut there are other causes. The Cubans being naturally a domestic and affectionate people seek to form marital relations at a very early age. Many a young man is a father before he is eighteen years of age, by a wife a couple of years younger. Girls are considered women at the age of thirteen or fourteen, and many of them are mothers of a considerable family before they are twenty. When we consider that the human organism is not fully developed until the age of twenty-one or twenty-two, even in a tropical climate, a large number of these premature marriages and all that they imply might easily account for the physical inferiority of the race. Another custom which I understand is practised more or less extensively among the best of Cuban families, can not but have a damaging effect upon the life and health of the child, and consequently upon the adult physique. This is the pernicious habit of bandaging infants in swaddling clothes. (See 'Cuba, Past and Present,' by Richard Davey.)

The object, in all probability, is to give the child what is termed by some persons a fine figure; but, inasmuch as every attempt of this kind tends to cramp the vital organs and eventually to stunt growth and development, it would seem to be one of the customs which the Cuban ladies might well afford to abandon if they hope to rear a vigorous people. Another custom, which, however, is not confined to Cuba, is the excessive use of tobacco. But in that country, I am informed, almost every man, woman and child appears to be addicted to the habit of smoking. (See 'Cuba, Past and Present.') Tobacco may be a solace to the aged, a force regulator for many, and even a food to some persons, through the property it possesses of lowering organic activity. But this is the very reason why it should not be used by aspiring youth who wish to attain a vigorous manhood. Excessive smoking produces disturbances in the blood, mucous membranes, stomach, heart, lungs. the sense organs and in the brain and nervous system. When indulged in freely by the young, the habit of smoking causes impairment of growth, premature development and physical prostration. This custom alone, if universally practised by one or two generations, would certainly tend to dwarf the people who become enslaved by it.

A tropical climate does not invite one to active exercise, and the Cubans as a people may well be excused for not indulging in the violent athletic games now so popular with the Northern races. But it has always seemed to me strange that they do not avail themselves of the opportunities present for swimming and bathing. I understand that there are ample bathing places, but the people of either sex seem to have a prejudice against their free use. When one recalls that the South Sea Islanders of the Pacific are among the tallest and best-formed people in the world, averaging 5 feet 9.33 inches in height,