May I ask you, Father Yates, to what do you ascribe the absence of Race prejudice in Cuba?

“Certainly.  In my humble opinion it is due to Church influence.  We all know the effect on our social life of our churches.  Among Catholics all men have always been on equal footing at the Communion rail.  Catholics would be unworthy of their name, i.e.  Catholic or universal were it not so.”

“Even in the days when slavery was practised this religious equality and fellowship was fully recognized among Catholics.”

Did you know there is an American Negro Saint?  He was born in Colon, Central America, and is called Blessed Martin De Porres.  His name is much honored in Cuba, Peru, Mexico and elsewhere.  He wore the white habit of a Dominican Brother.  The Dominicans are called the Order of Preachers.

Christ Died for All.  Father Donovan has those words painted in large letters over the Sanctuary in St. Joseph’s Church.  It is simply horrible to think that some self-styled Christian sectarians act as if Christ died for white men only.

Matanzas, Cuba, Jan. 20.—­Not least among the problems of reconstruction in Cuba is the social and political status of the colored “man and brother.”  In Cuba the shade of a man’s complexion has never been greatly considered, and one finds dusky Othellos in every walk of life.  The present dispute arose when a restaurant keeper from Alabama refused a seat at his public table to the mulatto Colonel of a Cuban regiment.  The Southerner was perfectly sincere in the declaration that he would see himself in a warmer climate than Cuba before he would insult his American guests “by seating a ‘nigger’ among them!” To the Colonel it was a novel and astonishing experience, and is of course deeply resented by all his kind in Cuba, where African blood may be found, in greater or less degree, in some of the richest and most influential families of the island.

COLORED BELLES THERE.

In Havana you need not be surprised to see Creole belles on the fashionable Prado—­perhaps Cuban-Spanish.  Cuban-English or Cuban-German blondes—­promenading with Negro officers in gorgeous uniforms; or octoroon beauties with hair in natural crimp, riding in carriages beside white husbands or lighting up an opera box with the splendor of their diamonds.  There was a wedding in the old cathedral the other day, attended by the elite of the city, the bride being the lovely young daughter of a Cuban planter, the groom a burly Negro.  Nobody to the manor born has ever dreamed of objecting to this mingling of colors; therefore when some newly arrived foreigner declares that nobody but those of his own complexion shall eat in a public dining room, there is likely to be trouble.

THE WAR BEGAN.