FEMALE LIFE IN HAVANA.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2036, 14 July 1875, Page 3

FEMALE LIFE IN HAVANA.

Riding on the Paseo de Tacon of Havana, a beautiful broad" street with a noble fountain and two statues as turning places for the carriages, I saw something of the freedom of the women in certain respects. While the rules of etiquette are very strict in many ways, in other respects they are allowed liberties of dress and demeanour that surprise us —I think it is as you tolerate certain follies in children. For instance, they break out in violent colour in their costumes, which strongly contrast with their dark hair and eyes. Pink and scarlet toilets are the rage; bare heads, necks, and arms the style. As you ride up and down the Paseo, which is-the great

course for carriages, you pass and repass many handsome equipages, drawn by 'English or, American horses, the- beasts of the country being very slink and disconsolate, as they well may be from the ill usage that is heaped upon, them. These carriages are all open, and oftener they are the Eaglisb. Victorian with two ; seats, or the Spanish, rolante ■which is a low chaise, often painted yellowy hung on two long slender thills, between which one horse trots, while another horse, attached by outside traces, with a mounted groom in boots, cocked hat, and a lively, gallops by its side. The top of the volante flops down over the passengers like an ©Id-fashioned calash, and you can only catch glimpses of the • Cuban aristocrats who cling to this ungainly national vehicle. But you can discover the uncovered heads, and the elaborately-dressed hair, and the nude '; jaecks and arms, and the bright pinkand buff satin dresses that overflow the sides of the volante. Ladies ride alone without any cavaliers, and receive any compliments which strangers from the sidewalk „ may pay them "with great sang frpid, if 1 not with gracious smiles. : . Ifp lady can walk in the middle of the : day. Jh the fresh, delicious morning the streets are full of mantilla costumed ladies '■' going to mass. With a rich veil over her head, any lady may take this religious privilege and roam about freely at this ; hour. But in the middle of the day she ~ must ride everywhere, or dispute the : sidewalk, of a foot in width, with the donkeys, who are far more yielding than thehumans she will meet. A man seems glad of the chance of jostling a woman - mto the street; rude men speak .in compliment, shopmen plying their trade stare, and the: endeavour is to make the daring pedestrian uncomfortable. ■'; But. at rsix.:.b'cl6ck-jih the evening all

this changes. Her imprisonment is over, v- arid she may sally forth, and walk unprotected for hours, dressed in the most *»;"conspicuous manner; bare-headed, barearmed, she may wander unattended all '■I'.bver the city. The laws of Havana arrange that only women of repute can -.te 1 abroad after nightfall V not a bad law for more civilized countries ! , : v We: were told that when there was

music in the public park 3in the evening, young girls by dozens go to hear it, and no one speaks to them or molests I. themi-^A lady may. call a carriageahd leave the Tacon theatre at midnight and ogo some milesto her country villa alone;; but woe to her if she call any other geri■s tleman'to-'attetid her saive hter father, her brother, or her husband.—Emily Ford.