The disposal of the insurgent troops is so intimately interwoven with the labour problem that it is difficult to separate the two. Some of the insurgent troops should be, and probably will be, utilised as Civil Guards, supplementing the United States forces; but those who are not needed for this purpose should be systematically aided as far as possible in any endeavours they may make to secure work. Men with hardly clothes to cover their nakedness, who have existed for three years on a diet that would kill the ordinary American labourer in three weeks, and who have practically foraged for their daily existence, must be helped a little before they can stand alone--helped at least to the extent of food and raiment and transportation to the locality where there is work in abundance. Lastly, in this connection, the need of homes in Cuba is one of the most pressing. The condition of those who labour on the plantations is truly deplorable. They literally have none of the necessities of civilisation. A complete state of savagery would be preferable to the condition of those employed on the sugar estates, who toil from early sunrise to sunset on rations of the plainest sort, and live in huts built of the bark of palm trees and thatched with the palm leaf. CHAPTER VII THE POPULATION OF CUBA The number and the characteristics of the people of Cuba are matters of doubt. If not of doubt exactly, at least there seem to be many discrepancies in relation to the numerical side of the problem, and great variation in opinion as to the qualities and peculiarities of the several classes of inhabitants which constitute the people of the Island. Before attempting to discuss the traits of the people, it may be advisable to ascertain, as far as practicable, the component parts of the population, and for that purpose recourse must be had to such statistical data as may be found available. The census report of Cuba can be obtained, but it is not issued, like our own, in book form, or even as printed reports. The results, moreover, are not worked out with any degree of detail as to age, sex, race, marital condition, occupation, and such other data as make an analysis of the population of the United States a comparatively easy task. The first census of Cuba was taken as far back as 1774, and since then the population has been enumerated at various periods, apparently when it suited the convenience or desire of the authorities at Madrid. The last count of the people was in December, 1897, but the returns from this enumeration have not been tabulated. The authorities admit they are imperfect in the four provinces of Pinar del Rio, Havana, Matanzas, and Santa Clara, and that they lack entirely the population of Puerto Principe and Santiago de Cuba. It may, therefore, be expedient that this work should be abandoned and that the United States authorities should take a complete and satisfactory census of the Island in December (for it cannot be taken