New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1870-05-24
DELIBERATE WHOLESALE MURDERS.

DELIBERATE WHOLESALE MURDERS.
The deliberate murder of the veteran
patriot Goicouria, by Spanish authority in
Cuba, has been speedily followed by two
other murders perpetrated in the same
cruel and expeditions manner that has
marked the death of all who have fallen
into the hands of the bloody ttrants OF
Cuba. Diego and Casper Aguero have
added their names 10 the long list OF
patriot martyrs that have persisted that
Cuba might be free; have placed their
names along with those of the gallant
Lopez, Crttenden, Goicouria, and others
on the scroll Of fame. These men were
not slain in the heat of battle, but were
pursued where there was no danger to their
pursuers, captured, taken into Havana and
after a sham trial by those who force
their rule upon the Cubans, were hurried
ly sent to the scaffold to be garroted-ex-
quisitely tortured to death by strangula-
ton, through the workings of an iron COL
lar that is made to screw the life out of all
whom Spanish rule in America shall con-
sign to such fate. II the bloody work
ended here it would be bad enough ia
deed, but this is but sprinkling OF the
vast amount of blood-innocent blood
the blood of women and children; the
blood of the aged and inirm men that
have been guilty Of no crime,
can be accused Of nothing more
than being suspected of sympathizing
with those who took all the risks of bat
ting for Cuban liberty; of battling for
those rights that are dear to all who
cherish representative government. 1t is
this river OF innocent blood that Spanish
tyranny is causing to flow in America that
arouses the deepest sympaties and resent
ments of the American heart. The death
of such men as openly enlisted, and were
taken in battle-at least such as Lopez,
Crittenden and Goicouria-might have
been looked for at the hands of Spanish
authority in Cuba, for it is the custom of
tyrants to observe no leniency toward
those who have fallen into their hands
that have dared to strike for freedom.
Lopez, Crittenden and Goicouria did not
expect leniency; they nobly and firmly
met the fate they knew was in store for
them the moment they fell into the hands
of those who held their bloody grasp upon
Cuba, but this does not relieve Spanish
authority of the justItharge Of deliberate
murder in consigning these heroic men to
the scafold. The blood of these men,
however, is but sprinkle compared with
the ocean of blood-of innocent blood
that has flowed in Cuba to satisfy Spanish
e and lust for power.
La Revolution, published in New York,
recently printed letter from civil en-
ploye of the Cuban government to friend
in New York. The following is an extract
from it:
You will doubtless have received plenty
notices of the atrocities which the Span
iards commit, but do not believe you can
imagine to what length they carry their
bsrbarities. Cutting children of six or
seven years of age in halves, quarteriDg
prisoners alive, striking old women and
violating young ones, are matters Of every
day occurrence. Parties of volunteers go
out to kill people for sport, they leaving the
corpses on the roadside, and nothing is said
about it. Not long since party of them
on his plantation near Moron, an
old man, his wife, daughter and little
grandchild some five years old; and what
do you suppose they did with them? Know
ing that they had sons and brothers in the
ranks of the insurgents, they cut their
stomachs open with their swords, pulled
out their intestines aud poured boiling
water into their still living bodies.
We, however, are unable to punish these
beasts by doing the like to them, for our
wishes us to act as a civilized
nation, and all we can do is to give no
quarter to the enemy.
This is the sad condition Of people
that are struggling for life and liberty
within view of people and government
that are professedly Republican, and have
long since put forth the doctrine that Re-
publicanism must prevail in America.
And yet our government utterly failed to
act in matter where the highest consid-
erations of humanity and civilization de-
mand that it should step in and save
neighboring people from the ruthless
tyranny, outrages and expressions of
power that has long since ceased to de-
serve the respect of the civilized world.
The conduct of the Spanish government
in Cuba toward those who are opposed to
its rule there can not receive the sanction
Of any civilized government, if
the account of the atrocities
above recited be only half correct. The
idea that women and children must be
made to suffer for the acts of men who
have undertaken to break the chains that
enslaved them could not be entertained by
any other than savage people. The
widest and most ferocious tribe of In
dams that infest our frontier country
could not be guilty of more cruelty than
is said to characterize Spanish conduct in
Cuba. How much longer the government
of the United States can continue to per-
nit these Spanish outrages to be perpe-
trated within its sight and hearing, with
out Offering even protest against them,
remains to be seen. Nothing can be more
certain than that our people abhor them.
PNEUMATICS Or AMMONIA.