She Extracts From Cuba A Revenue
Of Twelve Millions Of Dollars; Her Government Sends Its Needy Nobility,
And All For
Whom it would provide, to fill lucrative offices in Cuba - the
priests, the military officers, the civil authorities, every man
Who fills
a judicial post or holds a clerkship is from old Spain. The Spanish
government dares not give up Cuba if it were inclined.
"Nor will the people of Cuba make any effort to emancipate themselves by
taking up arms. The struggle with the power of Spain would be bloody and
uncertain, even if the white population were united, but the mutual
distrust with which the planters and the peasantry regard each other,
would make the issue of such an enterprise still more doubtful. At present
it would not be safe for a Cuba planter to speak publicly of annexation to
the United States. He would run the risk of being imprisoned or exiled."
Of course, if Cuba were to be annexed to the United States, the slave
trade with Africa would cease to be carried on as now, though its perfect
suppression might be found difficult. Negroes would be imported in large
numbers from the United States, and planters would emigrate with them.
Institutions of education would be introduced, commerce and religion would
both be made free, and the character of the islanders would be elevated by
the responsibilities which a free government would throw upon them. The
planters, however, would doubtless adopt regulations insuring the
perpetuity of slavery; they would unquestionably, as soon as they were
allowed to frame ordinances for the island, take away the facilities which
the present laws give the slave for effecting his own emancipation.
Letter L.
English Exhibitions of Works of Art.
London, _July_ 7, 1849.
I have just been to visit a gallery of drawings in water-colors, now open
for exhibition. The English may be almost said to have created this branch
of art. Till within a few years, delineations in water-colors, on drawing
paper, have been so feeble and meagre as to be held in little esteem, but
the English artists have shown that as much, though in a somewhat
different way, may be done on drawing-paper as on canvas; that as high a
degree of expression may be reached, as much strength given to the
coloring, and as much boldness to the lights and shadows. In the
collection of which I speak, are about four hundred drawings not before
exhibited. Those which appeared to me the most remarkable, though not in
the highest department of art, were still-life pieces by Hunt. It seems to
me impossible to carry pictorial illusion to a higher pitch than he has
attained. A sprig of hawthorn flowers, freshly plucked, lies before you,
and you are half-tempted to take it up and inhale its fragrance; those
speckled eggs in the bird's nest, you are sure you might, if you pleased,
take into your hand; that tuft of ivy leaves and buds is so complete an
optical deception, that you can hardly believe that it has not been
attached by some process to the paper on which you see it.
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