Bristol news. [volume] (Bristol, Va. & Tenn.) 1867-189?, 1873-12-02

further on is the Machine-shop, and
the last house of the bare and desolate
supurbs, on the left of the road, is the
slaughter-house. A square low build
ing, of adobe, the whitewashed walls
fifteen or twenty feet high, and above
the roof of dark red tiles, with its pro-
jecting caves under them is dug a
shallow ditch, two feet deep. 10 catch
the dripping rain drops. When it was
dug the soil was heaped in q low
mound along the outer edge-earth
bare and well trodden. Along one
wall the light-colored soil has a dark
er tinge. The building fronts, if the
rude aperture of an adobe hut can be
called front, to the south of east. but
path better worn than that which
leads to the door leaves the road and
seeks the corner, to the left on enter
ing, and the wall beyond Wall and
corner are scanned and scared, and pit
ted with bullets, breast high; great
flakes of adobe are knocked clear OF
whitewash, and bullets have bored
their way deep into the clay, for they
flew wild over the heads of kneeling
prisoners. Lower down bullets have
sometimes been, at the distance of a
dozen PAGES. spent balls, and the adobe
is scarcely penetrated; lower still,
where the ground rises towards the
firing party, the wall is one mass of
bullets and dark stains. Corner and
wall are seemed, for the sun must be
behind the firing party, and one is
chosen in the early morning and the
other late in the afternoon. 1t was be-
fore the bare, blank, windOwlesS wall
that Captain Fry and his crew were
halted. To the left were the swamps
around and beyond the slaughter
house, falling to the river; before was
the harbOr, with its vessels, the town
and its buildings. Its flags of Eng
land and America was on the right
and higher, for the road leads down to
the pla3e of execution. The garrison
f6rms in three-sided square, its left
and right resting on the angles of the
building; directly opposite, on knoll
tnat rises outside the ranks, gather Gu
rious spectators. Once from that knoll
the speaker saw in a group of insur-
gents baby girl scarcely four years
old she knelU in her dark clothing
with the rest. Her father, a fisher
erman, had been detected in carrying
dispatches to the insurgent leaders
he eluded capture, and was known to
lie concealed near the town. 1t was
found that the little girl had been truS
ted with the secret, no threat could
eXtort it from her, and there she was
with the full-groWn men. In the hol-
low square the prisoners stand in q
confused group with their spiritual
advisers. At last the firing party is
drawn up. The prisoners are in irons,
but before they kneel hands and feet
ale bound, and they are forced down
facing the wall, ready, when the bull
lets strike, to fall head-long into the
ditch below. The priests separate and
stand in a group to the right, with up
lifted crucihX. The prisoners are not
usually blindfolded. On the left, facing
the sguad-iu this case a line Of ma
| zines Stands the officer in command.
| He raises his sword and calls Cor i vi
va for Spain. The hats come off
| promptly in the crowd beyond the
| troops, Instances have been known
when, after little lack of warmth or
! prOmptness in the cheer and hat rails
ing, man has found himself kneel-
! ing in the row before the wall. The
/ officers sword flashes again Iii the sun
light he is facing, and another volley
sears the wall and fills the ditch. l.
is sometimes half an hour before the
last ends life in all the victims. Per-
| haps even this has not happened when
the march past begins The ditch will
he well filled, even by a small party of
prisoners, and cavalry as they file past
| crowd their horses close against the
wall, while the hoofs grind and slip
over the dead; the aXles Of the field
artillery leave long marks along the
whitewashed adobe as the wheel
orunches along in the ditch. When
it all over, and the negro seavengers
come to knock the irons off and load
the bruised, disfgured mas into their
carts, eye-witnesses tell of life and
motion in this load that moves off tO
a place two miles away, where all are
dumped indiscFiminately into q pit OF
Guicklime.