them with women who will bear children loyal to Spain.” It was here also that his more humane and civilized successor, General Blanco, who in the last days of 1897 had tried hard to save Spain’s one remaining colony in America, felt the shock of the explosion that sank the battleship _Maine_ in Havana Harbor in February, 1898, and exclaimed as he looked across the bay toward the wreck: “This will mark the saddest day of Spain’s history.” Within the same room too, Cuba’s first President, the beloved and revered Tomas Estrada Palma, with tears of humiliation in his eyes, handed his resignation as President to the American Secretary of War, William H. Taft, and left for his almost forgotten farm in the forests back of Manzanillo, where he passed his last days as a martyr to the greed and cruelty of his own people. Diagonally across from the old Presidential Palace, on the northwest corner of the Plaza de Armas, stands the Senate Chamber, a two-story building of the same attractive architecture found in the old Palace. It is in a way a companion to this building, having been designed and directed as the home and office of the various Lieutenant-Generals of the Island, in which capacity it served until the termination of Spanish rule in Cuba. During the two years of American Intervention, various military departments made their headquarters within this structure, but with the installation of the Republic in 1902 it was formally dedicated to the use of the Senate, and officers connected with that branch of the Legislative government. The lofty salon fronting the Plaza de Armas served as the Senate Chamber. The 24 members of the upper house held sessions there on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays of each week. As with the Presidential Palace, the somewhat lavish use of marble in patios, floors, stairways, balconies, etc., is much in evidence in this building. Just north of the Senate Chamber, and covering the east side of the long block on Tacon Street, between the Palace and the Bay, are located the Bureau of Secret Service, the Department of Government, and those of State of Justice, all installed at the present time in the same building. This building during Colonial days was occupied by the Department of Engineers, and with the beginning of American intervention was turned over to Brigadier General William A. Ludlow, to whose energy is due the credit of rapidly and effectively cleaning up the city of Havana after its sanitary abandonment of three centuries duration. General Ludlow shared the building with General Enoch Crowder. The Palace of State and Justice has been remodeled and renovated from foundation to azotes. All of its floors and most of its walls are now finished and decorated in a manner appropriate to the uses to which it is dedicated.