Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1876-02-11
Spanish Troops for Cuba.

THESE Cuban volunteers are, first,
volunteers, 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-
listment fifty dollars, he enlisting for one
or two years service; if at the end Of the
year he likes to re-engage for another he
receives another fifty dollars. When the
lad in bright Cadiz City receives this sum,
knowing that he has to embark within
fortnight, and having no care, no definite
love of home and parents, he goes tothe
bad for three days. You see a 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 ineshop 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, every
sixpence Of their fifty dollars. They are
amazingly proud, even before they are
habited as soldiers. | saw four of them
BOYS of eighteen to twenty-sitting on Ca
courtly, Spanish gentleman passed, and
said, care you conscripts?" "No," said
the spokesman, who had soldiers cap,
" we are mixtures !" Of the four, one
was barefooted, one only had a 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 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 vomlt and
fever If one comes back minus leg or
arm he must beg for his livelihood; for
pensions there are. none, save for those
who have served twenty-four years. The
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
ranc150-$. e. pottage of beans, rice and
dried chick peas. They sleep in the hold
on long row of sloping planks, each
man having rug and a hard pillow. at
seven a. m. all are summoned upondeck;
at SuDuOWU ali are OIdSISu UClOW3 anu db p
eight D. IN. the order is passed along the
dark and reeking hold Silence-not
word!' 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. Itis
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 I,
men of the worst ard lowest criminal
type-men. who have enlisted simply De-
cause they do not care a curse whether
they live or die, because they believe
neither in God nor in love, but only in
the g fifty dollars - men who, the moment
they can get into the hold OF some vessel
bound for New Orleans, escape to 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,
years service, and at the end of that fifty
dollars more gratuity if they choose 10 re-
enlist, or free passage home, give in
their names and go to Cuba, to be turned
into inhuman and wicked hrutes; to be
hardened by gazing upon tortures and
horrors which would make their mothers
blood curdle; and then, without any help
of God or man, to go into the teeming,
swamp eset military hospital, and die
Cadiz Cor. London Times.