miles of main line belong to these companies, and there are, besides, private branch lines to all the important sugar estates. The Ferrocarriles Unidos has four lines, connecting Havana with Matanzas, Batabano, Union, and Guanajay. The roads pass through the most populous part of the country and connect Havana with other lines.

Panama; the Compagnie Française de Cables
Sous-Marins has a line connecting Havana
with Santiago de Cuba, Haiti, Santo Domingo,
Venezuela, and Brazil.

The only three towns in Cuba having cable connections are Havana, Cienfuegos, and Santiago de Cuba.

Telegraphs, Telephones, Etc.-The The Western Railway was begun some forty telegraph and telephone systems in Cuba beyears ago, and in 1891, when it was acquired long to the Government, but the latter is by an English company, had reached Puerto de farmed out for a limited number of years to a Golpe, 96 miles from Havana and 10 miles company called the Red Telefonica de la Hafrom Pinar del Rio, the capital of the province bana. Nearly all the public and private buildof that name and the center of the tobacco-ings in the city and suburbs are connected by growing district. The line has been completed telephone.

to Pinar del Rio, and improvements have been
made in the old part, many of the bridges hav- DECLARATION
ing been replaced by new steel ones, the rails
renewed, modern cars put on, etc.

The other companies are: Ferrocarriles Cardenas-Jacaro, the main line of which joins the towns of Cardenas and Santa Clara; Ferrocarril de Matanzas, having lines between Matanzas and Murga, and also between Matanzas and Guareiras; Ferrocarril de Sagua la Grande, running between Concha and Cruces; Ferrocarril Cienfuegos-Santa Clara, connecting those towns; Ferrocarriles Unidos de Caibarien, from Caibarien to Placetas; Ferrocarril de Puerto Principe-Nuevitas; Ferrocarril de Guantanamo.

ENCE.

OF INDEPEND

In Congress July 4, 1776. The unanimous
Declaration of the Thirteen United States of
America.

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that The Marianao Railway also belongs to an all men are created equal, that they are enEnglish company, with headquarters in Lon-dowed, by their Creator, with certain unaliendon. The original line, belonging to Cubans, able rights, that among these are life, liberty, was opened in 1863, but liquidated and was and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure transferred to the present owners. The line, these rights, governments are instituted among only 8 miles in length, runs from Havana to men, deriving their just powers from the conMarianao, with a branch line to a small vil-sent of the governed, that whenever any form of lage on the coast. During 1894, over 750,000 passengers were carried, this being the chief source of revenue. The carriages are of the American type, and are fitted, as well as the locomotives, with the Westinghouse automatic brake; the rails are of steel, weighing 60 pounds per yard.

government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that Ports, Interior Transportation, Etc. governments long established should not be -In 1895 the port of Havana was visited by changed for light and transient causes; and 1179 vessels, of 1,681,325 tons; in 1897, 231 accordingly all experience hath shown that vessels, of 309,758 tons, visited Cienfuegos. mankind are more disposed to suffer where There are 54 ports in Cuba, of which 15 are evils are sufferable, than to right themselves open to commerce. There are 19 lighthouses. by abolishing the forms to which they are acCables.-There are four cable lines con- customed. But when a long train of abuses nected with Cuba. The International Ocean and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Telegraph Company has a cable from Havana object, evinces a design to reduce them under to Florida; the Cuban Submarine Company has a cable connecting Havana with Santiago de Cuba and Cienfuegos; the West India and Panama Company has a cable connecting Havana with Santiago de Cuba, Jamaica, Porto Rico, the Lesser Antilles, and the Isthmus of

absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems

of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless these people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment from any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond the seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the powers of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries, to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large, for their exercise, the state remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, re-nation. fusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation,

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us :

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the cir

Ordered:

IN CONGRESS,

JANUARY 18, 1777.}

That an authenticated copy of the Declaration of

Independence, with the names of the members of Con-
gress subscribing the same, be sent to each of the
United States, and that they be desired to have the
same put on record.
By order of Congress.

JOHN HANCOCK, President.

cumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the THE MECKLENBURG DECLARArest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

and

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of the good people of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is, and ought to be, totally dissolved ; and that as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which indeAnd for the pendent States may of right do.

support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

JOHN HANCOCK.

James Smith,
George Taylor,
James Wilson,
George Ross.

DELAWARE.

Cæsar Rodney,
George Read,
Thomas M'Kean.

MARYLAND.

Samuel Chase,
William Paco,
Thomas Stone,
Charles Carroll, of Car-
rollton.

VIRGINIA.

George Wythe,
Richard Henry Lee,
Thomas Jefferson,
Benjamin Harrison,
Thomas Nelson, Jr.,
Francis Lightfoot Lee.
Carter Braxton.

NORTH CAROLINA.
William Hooper,
Joseph Hewes,
John Penn.

SOUTH CAROLINA.

Edward Rutledge,
Thomas Heyward, Jr.,
Thomas Lynch, Jr.,
Arthur Middleton.

GEORGIA.

Button Gwinnett,
Lyman Hall,
George Walton.

Attest, CHAS. THOMSON, Secy.
A true copy.

JOHN HANCOCK, Presidt.

TION.

Some thirteen months previous to the signing of the great Declaration of Independence there was drawn up a document in Mecklenburg County, N. C., that was almost a model in wording and sentiment of the great charter of American liberty. There are different accounts of the matter, but the most reliable is

this:-

At a public meeting of the residents of
Mecklenburg County, in the State
of North
Carolina, held at Charlotte on the 20th day of
May, 1775, it was.

Resolved, That whenever directly or indirectly abetted, or in any way, form, or manner countenanced, the unchartered and dangerous invasion of our rights, as claimed by Great Britain, is an enemy of our country--to America-and to the inherent and inalienable

rights of man.

Resolved, That we, the citizens of Mecklenburg County, do hereby dissolve the politi

cal bonds which have connected us to the mother-country, and hereby absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British crown, and abjure all political connection, contract or association with that nation, which has wantonly trampled on our rights and liberties and inhumanly shed the blood of American patriots at Lexington.

Resolved, That we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people are and of right ought to be a sovereign and self-governing association, under the control of no power other than that of our God and the general government of the Congress. To the maintenance of which independence we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual cooperation, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

Two other resolutions in the same document, regarding administration of the law and regulating the militia, having no present value, are omitted.

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA.

(Went into operation first Wednesday in March, 1789.)
Preamble.-We, the people of the United
States, in order to form a more perfect union,

establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, for six years; and each Senator shall have one provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.