and only the twinkling lights shine out from the
black masses of buildings. The lights, too, are
growing fewer, and ever since you came into port
—which was at about eight o'clock—you have
heard from time to time gusts of wild martial
music from the shore. These gusts, the captain
tells you, are the strains of the military bands
playing in the Plaza di Armas. Hark! a most
tremendous crash! then what a quaint yet
plaintive flow of melody. Is that a Seguidilla, or a
Cubano, or one of the hundred variations of the
Jota Aragonese? Now, comes another crash;
the cymbals have it clearly; the bassoons have
given out; 'tis the big drum that is making all
the running; the cymbals are nowhere; bah, it
is a dead heat, and the grosso caisso and the
plated dishes come in together. Now, the
sounds have changed their direction. The
soldiers are marching home to their barracks.
Now, the wild sounds grow fainter; now, they die
away altogether, and Havana is left to dulness
and to me.

I walked the deck until long after the ship
was wrapped in darkness—all save the illumined
binnacles and my fellow deck-walkers' cigar-tips.
It was not at all the kind of night for going to bed.
It was, the rather, a night on which to stroll and
stroll, and indulge in the deleterious habit of
smoking, and wonder how many broadsides from
the guns of the Morro it would take to blow you
out of the water, and try to remember one of
the movements of the Jota Aragonese, and at
last, softly stealing into the saloon, and quite
disdaining state-room berth, to fling yourself on a
couch, and dream till morning of Mr.
Alcachofado and the three young Creoles of
Turnham-green.

Hasta Mañana. In my next I will relate
something cogent as to what Mañana means in
this part of the world.

HARD CASE OF THE WORKING
BRUTES.

THE hard case of the working men at all
times finds plenty of exponents to make it
known through the length and breadth of the
land; but I am not aware that any one has yet
discerned, much less expounded, the hard case
of the working brutes. I am about to supply
the omission.

I hold my brief from a cab-horse, which
pulled me through the snow the other day. As
I was paying his master, an extortionate dog
—the animal turned round and looked at me,
and, at a single glance, I saw the whole of the
hard case in his melancholy eye. It was not
for himself alone that he appealed with that
sad but expressive look; he spoke also for his
fellow-labouring brutes, the cow, the donkey,
the sheep, and the pig, and for those foreign
brethren of his, the elephant and the camel.

He did not complain of individual wrongs
(which might be exceptional), but of the
inevitable lot to which he and all his hard-working
tribe were decreed, not so much by the
design of nature, as by the insensibility of
mankind. I think I understand him clearly.

He has no objection to work for a reasonable
number of hours every day; he thinks it
right that he should have to labour for his
living, and does not, like his master, man,
regard the necessity as a curse. Such a thought
never entered his head. He will not even
complain that other brutes, such as the dog, the
cat, the parrot, and the canary-bird, are exempt
from useful exertion, while he is obliged to
earn his bread by the sweat of his brow and
his whole body; though that circumstance
might very fairly be urged as an aggravation
of his wrongs. What he does complain of is,
that he is rarely allowed to see any pleasure,
and never, on any occasion, gets luxuries.

Here is the key to the whole matter. Day
after day it is corn and hay, hay and corn—no
other variety, no little made dishes, no dessert,
no sparkling wine, no choice cigars. Then
when he has done his work we tie him up in
his stall and keep him there until we want him
to go to work again. All work and no play for
the poor horse—no going out in the evening to
relieve his overtaxed energies with a play or a
concert, or an harmonic supper. No luxuries,
no amusements whatever. Putting the case to
me with that appealing look, the working horse
says: "How would you like it? at work all day
in the City; beef and mutton, mutton and beef
from one week's end to another; and to bed
every night the moment you have swallowed
your supper. Oh, but you are an intelligent
animal, you say. Am not I an intelligent
animal? You yourself are constantly speaking
about the sagacity of the horse, and when
you want to sell me you call me 'clever.'
You are quite right, I am clever. Perhaps
there is not such a very great difference between
us in that respect, after all. I can carry
burdens, I can go errands, I can run, leap, and
dance, and I understand what is said to me. It
appears to me that I only fall short of you in not
being able to speak and read and write. But
these are accomplishments which have nothing
to do with animal enjoyments. I have a palate,
I have taste—why do you suppose that I
cannot enjoy a pâte de foie gras, that I do not
appreciate a glass of old port, that I take no
delight in a sensation drama? You say I am
talking nonsense. Well, put it this way. Are
there no horse equivalents for these human
luxuries and amusements? Look at other
brutes, which are merely ornamental, while I
am useful. There is your canary-bird, you
give him sugar; your pet dog, you treat him
to cakes and give him cream to lap—nay, I
have heard of a dog having roast chicken for
dinner; your parrot, to whom you allow the
double luxury of indulging in nuts and bad
language; your cat, who is permitted to hunt
mice and repose after the chase on the
drawing-room sofa. You allow all these brutes
luxuries and pleasures, but you deny them to
me."

It must be admitted that this argument of