The Elk County advocate. [volume] (Ridgway, Pa.) 1868-1883, 1876-11-23
SPANISH PRISON HORRORS.
Cnpnn Patriots Herded with the Worst
Criminnls-.C Treated with Fiend.
ish Cruelty.

ChbnH fa'ri0ts Herded with the Wors
Criminals. Treated with Fiend
ish Cruelty. 9 t'
In Ceuta, says the London Tines, th
prisoner is alone, separated from hi
friends, without any religious consola
tion or education whatever. He drag
and curses throughout his weary, suffer
ing life, then lies down and dies. Ii
the autumn of 1887, an English gentle
man-now holding commission as vice
consul in well known town in Spain
was riding along the then unmade roa,
between Puerto Santa Maria and Sal
Lucar de Barramedo, where 1000 con
victs were at work, making the roa,
which, watered with these poor wretches
blood, is now one uf the best in Spain
"The sight that saw" says he-and
give his own words" curdled and froz,
n&y blood. These 1000 men were len
by the government to the contractor who
had engaged to make the road. They
worked-drivcn to it bv blows from the
thick sticks of other prisoners mad,
cd6os, or sergeants, because stronger OF
more brutal than themselves, from morn
ing until night, on one scanty mess oi
pottage." The winter passed along, un
usual in it's severity in 1887 1888, and
the wind swept in fury across the low,
aguish fats of San Lucar. NV friend
expostulated with the superintendent
and said: "This is not even human,
IL is fiendiah; it is hellish to treat hu.
man beings thus" "I cannot help it,
was the answer; "the contractor does ae
he chooses. My friend passed by once
more. An overseer rode by on horse
back. One Of these poor, half starved
fellows came crouching to his stirrup to
supplicate for mercy. He loosened his
right foot from the stirrup, and struck
the mans naked breast so fearful a blow
that the blood gushed from his mouth.
he rolled over on the earth, and was
carried OIL corpse. "Ever since that
awful sight, when I had occasion to pass
those oreSiddrios, 1 set spurs to my
horse, and galloped away from the
spot"
There is a mound in the burial ground
of San Lucar which, if its rotting inhab-
itants could speak, could tell a tale of
awful suffering hardly equaled in these
latter days. There sleep 500 of those
1000 ragged, reckless, wicked men who
were placed by the government of Mad
rid "at the disposition OF their road
contractor" Cold, privation, blows,
and want of clothing did their fell work.
No ear heard these sons of crime cry
out; no ear bowed down to listen to
their complaint; they never knew of any
ear that would hear, and so they passed
away, by fives and by fifties, and little
lime and chalk dissolved the tale. aud
the road was made, and the remnant of
the band, "not the 1,000," were drafted
back TO their respective prisons. 1t may
be said, nay, it was said: "These are
such awfully depraved and lost sons Of
crime that it is best to kill them" Pos
sibiy, but not under the pretense of
Offering them life and work, to give
them death and slavery. Utterly reck-
less. L know they were. A friend of
mine used to give the poor fellows Guar
tos to buy bread when they thronged
round him and pleaded their hunger.
Said the overseer "a humane one) to
him: "It is no good; they won't buy
bread with your farthings; they will
only gamble, and lose all the rags they
have to one another" The end of this
is instructive enough; the
merciless government contractor died in
great poverty, and on his deathbed re-
pented aloud of his inhumanities. Be-
fore his death he had been brought to
trial for murder, but was acquitted,
although one judge, the first before
whom his case came, said: " l will leave
no stone unturned to bring that man to
the gallows."
The ascent to the chief prison is long
and severe; the silence and desolation aa
one approaches the summit are extreme.
On either side spreads the blue gleam-
ing sen, fecked with scarce passing
Rall, and away to the eastward a mass OF
white cloud. rising up as though out cf
the waves, hides the deformity of the
English Ceuta. A few prisoners out on
leave, rough looking fellows, tolerable
specimens of the eight hundred Or nine
hundred confined in the hacho, passed
us They We're on their way to the town
10 cater for provisions, or obtain work,
Tor the coming week, for to-day Was
Sunday; the distant strains OF the flies |!
and kettle drums OF the troops were
borne to us on the breeze, and the eve
could just discern them, dusky col |
lmn, vending their way TO the review
ground, where the altar, etc., for tho |
ield Afisa was already set up on knoll
IF rising ground, The prisoners in this
all numuer from eight hundred to one
thousand; their habitat is in various
sheds, tbinly dotted over the slopes Of
ho fortress. They are allowed to ply |
heir several trades, but many seemed |
10 be too much gone iu health, hopes |
md spirits to perform any active duties.
}! the money earned by them, a certain |
'roportionis reserved by the government
. pay the expenses of their mainte-
lance. Some make stockings, some
hoes. and so on. But they are, for the
most part, old and worn out. Glad in
oldiers' tattered red breeches, or, as
ftentimes, naked to indecency, they
otter in and out of the wretched shed
which they call their home; devour and
quarrel like byenas over their wretched,
Insufficient fare; smuggle knives into
he fortress, and fight and kill one an
ther like wild beasts.
They sleep in unfurnished sheds, open
Q the roof; 100 to 200 in each shed.
The sheds are foored with earth or
'ltching stone the vermin creep over
he walls few have beds, hardly any
bedstead; all about the rooms are
'atches of stagnant, sinking water
nd ordure, into one of which plunged
aay foot, for the place is we'll nigh dark.
.hese men are under no order, no dis
lpline they have not enough to eat
hey have nothing whatever to raise
hem above the misery and filth in
1hich they grovel. They get one
'osslbly two meals day, but the vile