The Calle de Mercaderes, or the street of the merchants, is the Broadway and Washington Street of Havana, and contains many fine stores for the sale of dry goods, china, jewelry, glass-ware, etc. The merchant here does not designate his store by placing his own name on his sign, but, on the contrary, adopts some fancy title, such as the "America," the "Star," the "Bomb," "Virtue," and the like; which titles are paraded in golden letters over the doors. These tradesmen are, generally speaking, thorough Jews in their mode of dealing, and no one thinks of paying the first price asked by them for an article, as they usually make allowances for being beaten down at least one half. The ladies commonly make their purchases in the after part of the day, stopping in their volantes at the doors of the shops, from which the articles they desire to examine are brought to them by the shopmen. No lady enters a shop to make a purchase, any more than she would be found walking in the streets.
There is no paper money known on the island, so that all transactions at these stores must be consummated in specie. The coin generally in use is the Spanish and Mexican dollar, half and quarter dollars, pesétas, or twenty-cent pieces, and reals de plata, equal to our twelve-and-a-half cent pieces, or York shillings. The gold coin is the doubloon and its fractions. Silver is always scarce, and held at a premium in Havana, say from two to five per cent. As Cuba has no regular bank, the merchant draws on his foreign credit altogether, each mercantile house becoming its own sub-treasury, supplied with the largest and best of iron safes. The want of some legitimate banking system is severely felt here, and is a prominent subject of complaint with all foreign merchants.
The Spanish government supports a large army on the island, which is under the most rigid discipline, and in a state of considerable efficiency. It is the policy of the home government to fill the ranks with natives of old Spain, in order that no undue sympathy may be felt for the Creoles, or islanders, in case of insurrection or attempted revolution. An order has recently been issued by Pezuela, the present governor-general, for the enrolment of free blacks and mulattoes in the ranks of the army, and the devotion of these people to Spain is loudly vaunted in the captain-general's proclamation. The enlistment of people of color in the ranks is a deadly insult offered to the white population of a slave-holding country,--a sort of shadowing forth of the menace, more than once thrown out by Spain, to the effect that if the colonists should ever attempt a revolution, she would free and arm the blacks, and Cuba, made to repeat the tragic tale of St. Domingo, should be useless to the Creoles if lost to Spain. But we think Spain overestimates the loyalty of the free people of color whom she would now enroll beneath her banner. They cannot forget the days of O'Donnell (governor-general), when he avenged the opposition of certain Cubans to the illicit and infamous slave-trade by which he was enriching himself, by charging them with an abolition conspiracy in conjunction with the free blacks and mulattoes, and put many of the latter to the torture to make them confess imaginary crimes; while others, condemned without a trial, were mowed down by the fire of platoons. Assuredly the people of color have no reason for attachment to the _paternal_ government of Spain. And in this connection we may also remark that this attempt at the enrolment of the blacks has already proved, according to the admission of Spanish authority, a partial failure, for they cannot readily learn the drill, and officers dislike to take command of companies.