_The author of this story, a Minneapolis preacher, recently returned from a tour of the West Indies for the Whiz Bang, and in this writing he depicts the gay carnival spirit which reigns in Havana because of America’s prohibition._ BY REV. “GOLIGHTLY” MORRILL Pastor People’s Church, Minneapolis, Minn. Many are the travelers, like Pantagruel, in search of the _Dive Bouteille_—Holy Bottle, and who believe in its oracular utterance—“Drink!” The man who holds in veneration the memory of Noah, notices on entering Havana that the harbor entrance is “bottle-necked,” and well “fortified”—with booze. The “Fountain of Youth” here is not water, but “cask”ades of wine and beer, etc. However, one needs the purse of Croesus, for if you want to drink you must pay what the bar wants to charge—a price as exorbitant as smuggled liquor brings in the States. If you remonstrate with the bartender, you may send for the manager, as my friend did, and have him say, “Don’t bother me—tell your troubles to a policeman.” If you are mad and tired of Cuba, go to Guadeloupe and Martinique in the French West Indies where the rent-hog is unknown; where a good room rents for $7 a month; where a course dinner, with a bottle of wine, at the best hotel will cost you only 40 cents; where rum punch is three cents a glass, wine five cents, and the best brands of champagne, $1.50 to $2.00 a quart. In Cuba you pay $2.50 for a bottle of wine, and $12 for a quart of champagne. Pascal wrote that man was the “glory and scum of the universe.” Much of the scum of the United States has floated to Havana. The lure of “spiritual” elixirs (there is a vermouth in town known as “Vaticano”) has brought a “bum” element to the island. Havana has become a convention city for crooks who frequent the race-track, saloons and gambling hells. Most appropriately has the outline of Cuba been compared to the hammer-headed shark. Fights and brawls are common; city jails are full of American drunks and toughs. Cuba has imported laborers from Haiti to raise cane, but the worst “Cain-raisers” have come from the United States. Sterne said, “An Englishman does not travel to see Englishmen”—an American does not care to journey here to meet such Americans.