American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1876-02-12
Spanish Troops for Cuba.

These Cuban volunteers are, first, volun-
teers, i. e., conscripts newly drawn, who
elect to go to serve in Cuba; secondly,
Carlists who have applied for pardon !;
thirdly, regular soldiers who are weary of
the war in the North or have got into
debt; fOurthly, prisoners who desire to
serve in the Cuban army. For the system
of recruiting for the army of Cuba is as
follows: Each volunteer receives on en-
lstment fifty dollars, he enlisting for one
or two years service; il at the end of the
year he likes to re-engage for another he
receives another fifty dollars. When the
,d in bright Cadiz City receives this sum,
knowing that he has to embark within a
fortnight, and having no care, no definite
love of home and parents, he goes to the
bad for three days. You see IL cab rat
Ting down the narrow streets of CadiZ, and
10, five Cuban volunteers peasant lads of
eighteen years. are its occupants; you enter
a wine shop and halfa dozen of these boys
come in and buy their tumbler of Montilla
or sherry. In three DAYS they have spent,
what with cabs, wine, sweets, etc. g, every
sixpence of their fifty dollars. They are
amazingly proud, even before they are
habited rs soldiers. l saw four of them
boys of eighteen to twenty-sitting on Ca
diz wharf the other day. A gray-haircd,
courtly, Spanish gentleman passed, and
said, care you conscripts?" No." said
the spokesman, who had a soldiers cap,
tive are militaires'' OF the four, one
was barefOoted, one only had Il military
badge-a blue, red -tasseled cap. These
lads are, almost without exception, from
the interior of Andalusia. They cannot get
work; fifty dollars is a heaven upon
earth; they have no idea what Cuban life
is; they volunteer, go, and only twenty of
every hundred return at the end of the
two years. The rest die of vomit and
fever. If one comes back minus a leg or
arm he must beg for his livelihood; for
pensions there are none, save for those
Government pays twenty dollars for the
passage and food of each private
soldier, and the boats generally
carry 800 men each, and make the
passage to Cuba in sixteen or twenty
days. On board they are not badly
treated. Two days in each week they
have bacon or pork, and during the rest
rancho-t. g. pottage of beans, rice and
dried chick peas. They sleep in the hold
man having rug and a hard pillow. At
seven a. m. all are summoned upon deck;
at shutdown all are ordered below; and at
eight p. m. the order is passed along the
dark and reeking hold Silence-nOt a
wordp' The volunteer in Cuba generally
succumbs to the climate; twenty per cent
only, it is calculated, return; yet during
this and last month, no less than % 600
will have been drafted off to Cuba 1t is
wrong to say that the Cuban volunteer is
ill-treated; the treatment is not bad
These fellows are well fed, and receive
fifteen pence per day in coin. 1t is the
climate which kills them. Among the
ranks of these men are found faces and
uen of the worst and lowest criminal
type-men who have enlisted simply be-
cause they do not care curse whether
they live or die, because they believe
neither in God nor in love, but only in
the /" fifty dollars y men who, the moment
they can get into the hold of some vessel
bound for New Orleans, escape to Il free
State. But the mass, the majority of the
Cuban volunteers are idle or unfortunate
peasant lads, who, spurred on by the
scarcity of work and tempted by the
promising bait of fifty dollars down. Il
years service, and u. the end of that fifty