Don Francisco de Arango, being a clear sighted man, endeavored to bring about the imposition of a tax upon such plantations as did not have at least one third as many women as men among their slaves. He also tried to have a duty of $6 levied upon every male negro imported from Africa. In both of these efforts he was defeated, but they had the excellent effect of stirring public opinion. While the juntas were opposed, as always, to enacting any such drastic measures, yet there began to be a disposition to encourage the mating of the slaves, to increase the number of marriages, to give each negro a little cabin of his own that he might call home, and, when children came, to see that they were properly cared for. Then, too, efforts were made to insure lighter work for the women during pregnancy, with a total relief as the time for the birth of the coming child grew nearer. How much of this came about because the slave owners were forced to see that a continuation of the early conditions would compass their own ruin, and how much because they were naturally inclined to be humane when their duty was brought home to them, it is difficult to determine; but judging from the Cuban's naturally kindly disposition, we are inclined to believe that in many instances the master was glad to treat his slaves as well as he could, when he began to realize that after all they were not merely property--cheap labor--but human beings with emotions and longings very much like his own. Under these bettered conditions the rate of negro mortality fell as low as from eight to six per cent. on the best plantations. Another element, however, which was not conducive to the betterment of the conditions of the negroes was the introduction of thousands of Chinese laborers. They contracted to work for a number of years at prices far below those usually estimated as fair, on the island. They were the very lowest type of Chinese, and brought with them many vicious influences and practices. No Chinese women were imported, and the Chinese men mingled freely with the negro women. The very worst kind of miscegenation was thus promoted, and the effect on the morals of the negroes on the estates where these Chinese were employed was very bad indeed. In no other of the foreign colonies in America did the free negro so predominate as in Cuba. It was not at all a difficult matter for a black to gain freedom, since almost no real obstacles were placed in his way. Every slave who did not like his "condition of servitude" had a right to seek a new master, or to purchase his liberty, on payment only of the price paid for him.