The sewerage system is in a deplorable condition, and the last effort made to improve it was stopped by the war. What should be done is a problem to be solved by American engineers, and had Colonel Waring, of New York, not fallen a victim to Havanese filth, he would no doubt have done for the city what Spain in all her years of possession failed to do. The task is now upon the shoulders of General Ludlow, whose efficiency is beyond question. The city is lighted by gas and electricity, the works being operated by a Spanish-American company, controlled from New York City. The water supply of the city has been excellent since the new aqueduct was completed, in 1893, after thirty-two years of delay. The water is gathered from about four hundred springs in the neighbourhood of Vento, ten miles from the city; it is calculated that they will yield nearly forty millions of gallons every twenty-four hours. The aqueduct, tunnel, and receiving basin cost $3,500,000. The reservoirs, four miles from the city, with a capacity of eight millions of gallons, cost $566,486, and the laying of pipes, etc., $1,566,374, or a total of over $5,000,000. The works are owned by the city. The telephone system, owned by the Government, is leased to the Red Telefonica de la Habana, and had, previous to the war, twenty-one miles of line and fifteen hundred subscribers. Two companies comprise the fire department of the city, and these are of the old-style "volunteer" variety. One of the companies is supported by the city, the other by private enterprise. Fires are rare and seldom extensive, the annual losses not aggregating half a million dollars, and insurance companies find Havana risks most desirable. The death-rate of Havana is about 33 per 1000, a figure 25 per cent. in excess of the majority of American cities. In one year (1893) there were 6610 deaths to 4175 births, showing a loss in population of 2435. While yellow fever and diseases due to lack of sanitation are the chief causes of death, it is noticeable that 20 per cent. of the deaths are due to consumption, a disease not generally understood to prevail in the soft air of the tropics. The proportion of illegitimacy, which is 147 per 1000 births in Austria, the leading European country in this regard, is over 250 in Havana among the whites. What it is among the blacks is unknown. There are 120 tobacco manufactories of the first class in the city, and many of lesser rank, and thousands of people find employment in them. Some of the larger factories employ between 400 and 500 hands each. The shipments of cigars from Havana from 1888 to 1896 reached the enormous total of 1,615,720,000; the United States taking 739,162,000, or somewhat less than half. Owing to the heavy tariff, the shipments decreased from 188,750,000 in 1888 to 60,000,000 in 1896 and for several years previously. Ninety-nine per cent. of the Cuban cigars received in the United States come from Havana.