they look particularly cool and inviting from the sundrenched street; in the evening the stroller has a sense of sauntering unmolested through the very heart of a hundred family circles.

Old residents tell us that Havana is a far different city from the one from which the Spanish flag was banished twenty years ago. Its best streets, they say, were mere lanes of mud then, or their

cobbled pavements so far down beneath the filth of generations that the uncovering of them resembled a mining operation. Along the sea, where a boulevard, second only to the peerless Beira Mar of Rio, runs to-day, the last century left a stenching city garbage-heap. The broad, laurel-shaded Prado leading from the beautiful central plaza to the headland facing Morro Castle was a labyrinthian cluster of unsavory hovels. All this, if one may be pardoned a suggestion of boasting, was accomplished by the first American governor. But the Cubans themselves have continued the good work. Once cleaned and paved, the streets have remained so. Buildings of which any city might be proud have been erected without foreign assistance. In their sudden spurt of ambition the Cubans have sometimes overreached themselves. A former adA former administration began the erection of a

presidential palace destined to rival the best of Europe. About the same time the provincial governor concluded to build himself a simple little marble cabin. Election day came, and the new president, after the spendthrift manner of Latin-American executives, repudiated the undertaking of his predecessor, which lies to-day the abandoned grave of several million pesos. The governor of

A mounted policeman of Havana

the province was convinced by irrefutable arguments that his half-finished little cabin was out of proportion to his importance, and yielded it to his political superior. It is nearing completion now, a thing of beauty that should, for a time at least, satisfy the artistic longings even of great Cuba. For it has nothing of the inexpensive Jeffersonian simplicity of our own White House, fit only for such plebeian occupants as our Lincolns and Garfields, but is worthy a Cuban president during the few months of the year when he is not occupying his suburban or his summer palace.

Havana has grown in breadth as well as character since it became the capital of a free country. While the population of the island has nearly doubled, that of the metropolis has trebled. Víbora, Cerro, and Jesús del Monte have changed from outlying country villages of thatched huts to thriving suburbs;

Vedado, the abode of a few scattered farmers when the treaty of Paris was signed, has become a great residential region where sugar-millionaires and successful politicians vie with one another in the erection of private palaces, not to mention the occasional perpetration of architectural monstrosities. Under the impulse of an ever-increasing and ever-wealthier population, abetted by energetic young Cubans who have copied American real-estate methods, Havana is already leaping like a prairie fire to the crests of new fields, which will soon be wholly embraced in the conflagration of prosperity.

One of the purposes of Cuba's revolt against Spain was the suppression of the lottery. For years the new republic sternly frowned down any tendency toward a return of this particular form of vice. To this day it is unlawful to bring the tickets of the Spanish lottery into the island. But blood will tell, and the mere winning of political freedom could not cure the Cuban of his love for gambling. Private games of chance increased in number and spread throughout the island. The Government saw itself losing millions of revenue yearly, while enterprising persons enriched themselves; for to all rulers of Iberian ancestry the exploitation of a people's gambling instinct seems a legitimate source of state income. New palaces and boulevards cost money, independence brings with it unexpected expenditures. By the end of the second intervention the free Cubans were looking with favor upon a system which they had professed to abhor as Spanish subjects. The law of July 7, 1909, decreed a public revenue under the name of "Loteria Nacional," and to-day the lottery is as firmly established a function of the Government as the postal service.

There are two advantages in a state lottery to the Government. It is not only an unfailing source of revenue; it is a splendid means of rewarding political henchmen. Colectorías, the privilege of dispensing lottery-tickets within a given district, are to the Cuban congressman what postmasterships are to our own. The possession of one is a botella (bottle), Cuban slang for sinecure; the lucky possessor is called a botellero. He in

turn distributes his patronage to the lesser fry and becomes a political power within his district. The whole makes a splendidly compact machine that can be turned to any purpose by the chauffeur at the political wheel.

Barely had we arrived in Havana when the rumor reached me that the billeteros could be compelled to sell their tickets at the legal price, if one "had the nerve" to insist. I abhor a financial dispute, but I have as little use for hearsay evidence. I concluded to test the great question personally. Having purchased two "pieces" at the customary price, to forestall any charge of miserliness, I set out to buy one at the lawful rate. A booth on a busy corner of Calle Obispo, a large choice of numbers fluttering from its ticket-racks, seemed the most promising scene for my nefarious project, because a traffic policeman stood close by. I chose a "piece" and, having tucked it away in a pocket, handed the vender a peseta.

"It is thirty cents," he announced politely, smiling at what he took to be my American innocence.

"Not at all," I answered, blushing at my own pettiness. "The price is twenty cents; it is printed on the ticket."

"I sell them only at thirty," he replied, with a gesture that invited me to return the ticket.

"The legal price is all I pay," I retorted. "If you don't like that, call the policeman," and I strolled slowly on. In an instant both the vender and the officer were hurrying after me. The latter demanded to know why I had not paid the amount asked.

"The law sets the price at twenty cents," I explained. "As a guardian of order, you surely do not mean to help this man collect an illegal sum.”

The policeman gave me a look of scorn such as he might have turned upon a millionaire caught stealing chickens, and answered with a sneer:

"He is entitled to one cent profit." "But not to ten cents," I added triumphantly.

The guardian of law and order grunted an unwilling affirmative, casting a pitying glance up and down my person, and turned away with another audible sneer only when I had produced a cent. The

vender snatched the coin with an expression of disgust, and retains to this day, I suppose, a much lowered opinion of Americans.

The silly ordeal, which I have never since had the courage to repeat, proved the assertion that the Cubans may buy their lottery-tickets at the legal price, but it demonstrated at the same time why few of them do so. Pride is the chief ally of the profiteer. The difference between twenty cents and thirty is not worth a dispute, but the failure of the individual Cuban to insist upon his rights, and of his Government in protecting them, constitutes a serious tax upon the nation and enriches many a worthless loafer. With some forty lottery drawings a year, this extra, illegal ten cents a "piece" costs the Cuban people the neat little sum of at least $12,000,000 a year, or four dollars per capita.

The drawings take place every ten days, besides a few loterías extra-ordinarios, with prizes several times larger, on the principal holidays. They are conducted in the old treasury building down near the end of Calle Obispo. We reached there soon after seven of the morning named on our tickets. A crowd of two hundred or more heavymouthed negroes, poorly clad meztizos, and ragged, emaciated old Chinamen for the most part, were huddled together in the shade at the edge of the porch-like room. A policeman-not the one whose scorn I had arousedbeckoned to us to step inside and take one of the seats of honor along the wall, not, evidently, because we were Americans, but because our clothing was not patched or our collars missing. At the back a long table stretched the entire length of the room. A dozen solemn officials, resembling a jury or an election board, lolled in their seats behind it, a huge ledger, a sheath of papers, an ink-well and several pens and pencils before each of them. At the edge of the

room, just clear of the standing crowd of hopeful riffraff, was a similar table on which another group of solemnfaced men were busily scribbling in as many large blank-books, with the sophisticated air of court or congressional reporters. Between the tables were two globes of open-work brass, one perhaps six feet in diameter, the other several times smaller. The larger was filled with balls the size of marbles, each engraved with a number; the smaller one contained several thousand others, representing varying sums of money.

The winning tickets may be cashed at any official colectoría at any time within a year, but such delays are rare. Barely is the drawing ended when the venders, armed with the billetes of the next sorteo, hurry forth over their accustomed beats to pay the winners and establish a reputation not so much for promptitude as for the ability to offer lucky numbers. The capital prize, $100,000 in most cases, is perhaps won now and then by some favorite of fortune, instead of falling to the Government, collector of all unsold winners, though I have never personally known of such a stroke of luck during all my wanderings in lottery-infested lands. Smaller causes for momentary happiness are more frequent, for with 1741 prizes, divisible into a hundred "pieces" each, it would be strange if a persistent player did not now and then "make a killing." But even these must be rare in comparison to the optimistic multitude that pursues the goddess Chance, for on the morning following a drawing the streets of Havana are everywhere littered with worthless billetes cast off by wrathy purchasers. Wherefore an incorrigible moralist has deduced a motto that may be worth passing on to future travelers in Cuba:

"Buy a 'piece' or two that you may know the sneer of Fortune, but don't get the habit."

THE SYRIAN BONE OF CONTENTION HE war accustomed us to a world of dramatic magnitudes, and we are having some difficulty in scaling

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down our sense of propor

tion to the actual affairs of the post-war world. Situations in international politics that back in 1914 would have set the world agog with interest, captured headlines, and called the largest type into service, to-day are tucked away in tenline despatches on inside pages save by a spare half-dozen metropolitan papers which pay particular attention to foreign news. The Anglo-French tension over Syria is a case in point. In 1910, let us say, this situation would doubtless have been played up in the press as a possible prelude to a war between France and England. Now it is calmly passed by as merely a bit of unfinished business left by the peace conference. It may be, of course, that this attitude represents a correction rather than a distortion of our sense of proportion. At any rate, Syria, at the moment of writing, is one of the interesting tension points in world politics.

Syria, a long strip of territory between the Arabian Desert and the Mediterranean Sea, has long been a significant spot in world politics, because it is a line of communication between Asia and Africa. It has long been a battleground of conflicting national interests. Here Turkish, English, French, Russian, and German interests have jockeyed for position. It is part of the medley of the Eastern question in which it has proved difficult to reconcile French and British interests. The present position of affairs is such that unless an amicable understanding on these matters can be reached the future relations of France and England may be deeply disturbed. Without

going into detail respecting the more remote background of the question, what is the story of the present strained situation?

Under

Back in 1916 an arrangement respecting Syria was entered into by France, England, and Russia. At that time French and British spheres of influence were marked out in Asia Minor. that agreement England assumed Palestine and Mesopotamia as her sphere to the south, while France took her sphere to the north-a sphere that included the Mediterranean coast at valuable points and a back country reaching as far as Persia. But that agreement was not destined to stand unquestioned. factors entered into the situation. sia and Russian interests went into eclipse. Mr. Wilson came into the picture with his doctrine of mandates. In the whole process of the war and the peace conference the 1916 agreement lost its definiteness, and it was accepted on all hands that subsequent events had to some extent made necessary a revision of the arrangement. In feeling

New Rus

their way toward a resettlement French and British interests have had no little difficulty in avoiding serious tension.

Lord Curzon, seeing Mesopotamia as an increasingly British concern, began to look about for its natural and adequate outlet to the Mediterranean. That outlet clearly was the port of Alexandretta. But the port of Alexandretta was in the French sphere of influence to the north, according to the 1916 arrangement. It was a ticklish matter to handle. But imperial "necessities" would not justify an undue yielding to the niceties of the situation. Alexandretta stands at the neck of the desert bottle through which the richly laden caravans from the hinterland must pass. Furthermore, Alexandretta lies advantageously on the continental route

to the Indies. Surely France should see the logic of the situation; so Lord Curzon proceeded to explain the naturalness, the inevitability, and the justice of the British desire for Alexandretta. The logic of the situation did not, however, seem to lie so clear in the mind of M. Pichon, speaking for the Quai d'Orsay, as it lay in the mind of Lord Curzon, speaking for Downing Street. M. Pichon agreed with Lord Curzon up to the point that subsequent events had made desirable a reconsideration of the 1916 arrangement, but any such reconsideration must, in French opinion, start with the fact that France, regardless of concessions she may have made in 1916, could not now listen to any proposal that meant the dismemberment of Syria's racial and geographical unity. British dominance in Palestine began to rankle in the French breast. To the French mind no logic could justify the separation of Palestine from the rest of the province. Nor does the case for English control of the port of Alexandretta seem clearer to French eyes. Alexandretta is the best and the only natural port of the territory. Beirut and Tripoli, with their costly artificial moles, cannot compare with Alexandretta, protected as it is by a wonderful bay. Syria's maximum value to its possessor hinges to a large degree upon possession of Alexandretta. There will doubtless be much shifting and counter-shifting of zones of occupation as between French and British troops before a real settlement is reached. Some sort of arrangement may indeed be reached by the time this comment reaches the reader, but the stubborn facts of the situation do not promise a final settlement soon.

French logic will hardly shake British interests in Palestine. It is well to remember that back in the quiet days of 1903, when international affairs were less upon the front page than now, British diplomacy took a paternal interest in Zionism. A hurried reading of the new map of that region will show that Realpolitik was lurking in the background even then. Palestine, it will be seen, stands strategically between the British possession of Egypt on the one hand and the British possessions of India, Persia, and Mesopotamia on the other. Eng

land will not lightly assent to the establishment of any other world power in this strategic position. With the stirrings of imperialistic dreams in certain French quarters, England will not look pleasantly upon French pretensions here, whatever be the basis of argument. French opinion has been nettled by British action throughout in the Persian, Syrian, and Turkish situations. Despite the customary gestures of brotherly love, an ugly mood is being generated.

It is a strangely involved situation. The dominant Mohammedan element prefers to see the Kingdom of the Hedjaz infringe upon and limit the French sphere rather than see any extension of French control. England's policy plays into the hands of the Hedjaz. While the Arabs do not like the idea of a Zionist state on what they claim is an Arab land, as between a possible Christian penetration and a Jewish occupation they will choose the Jewish. If British diplomacy plays a clever hand with the Moslem world, France may as well pack her belongings and surrender her Syrian dreams. This is just another indication that the quest of empire with its attendant rivalries did not die at Versailles.

NEW YORK'S TOWN HALL

IN the midst of New York's vastness, complexity, and hectic hurry, the quiet and intimate parley of the New England town-meeting is to be institutionalized. If conscious and careful organization can do it, the lost art of community discussion is to be revived at the very heart and center of metropolitan distractions.

Under the guidance of the League for Political Education, there is being erected at 113-123 West 43d Street a town hall, dedicated to the orderly, but unhampered, discussion of the common interests of city, State, and nation. The building will serve as the home of the League for Political Education, the Civic Forum, and the Economic Club. A reading-room, maintained with special reference to political science, will ultimately house a political-science library of ten thousand volumes, not duplicating, but correlating and inter