The New Orleans Democrat. (New Orleans, La.) 1875-1876, 1876-02-03

THE SOLDIERS WHO 90 TO CUBA TO BE KILLED
OFF BY THE voMITO.
[Cadiz Correspondence Of the London Timcs.l
These Cuban volunteers embarking at
Cadiz are, first, volunteers /. e., con
scripts newly drawn who elect to go to
serve in Cuba; secondly, Carlists who
have applied for pardon; thirdly, regu-
lar soldiers who are weary OF the war in
the North, or have got into debt !
fourth, prisoners who desire to serve in
the Cuban army. For the system of re-
cruiting for the army of Cuba is as fol-
lows! Each volunteer receives on enlist
ment $50, he enIisting for one or two
years service If at the end Of one year he
likes TO engage for another, he receives
another $50. When the lad in bright
Cadiz city receives this sum, knowing
that he has to embark within a fort
night. and having no care, no definite
love Of home and parents, he goes to
the bad for three days. You see cab
rattling down the narrow streets OF
Cadiz, and 10 five Cuban volunteers
peasant lads Of 1s years. are its occu
pants you enter a wine shop and half
dozen of these boys come in and buy
their tumbler of Montila or sherry. In
three days they have spent, what with
cabs, wine, women, and sweets, every
sixpence Of their $50.
They are amazingly proud, even be-
fore they are habitcd as soldiers. saw
four of them-boys Of eighteen or
twenty sitting on Cadiz wharf the other
day. A gray-haired, courtly Spanish
gentleman passed, and said, "Are you
conscripts?" "No, said the spokesman,
who had a soldiers cap. 1--WE are mill
tnires." Of the four one was barefooted
one only had military badge-a blue,
Oh
almost without exception, from the in
terror Of Andalusia. They cannot get
work; $50 Is a heaven upon earth they
have no idea what Cuban life is; they
volunteer, go, and only 20 of every 100
return at the end of the two years. The
rest die Of vomito and fever. IL one
comes back minus q leg or arm he must
beg for his livelihood, for pensions there
are none, save for those who have served
for twenty-four years.
The government pays $40 for the pas
sage 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 u. e., pottage of
beans, RICE and dried chick peas. They
sleep in the hold. on a long row OF
Sloping planks, each man having a rug
and hard pillow. At a. m. all are
upon deck At sundown all
are ordered below, and at 8 p. m. the
order is passed along the dark and reek
ing hold, ''Silence-nota word.
1t is wrong to say that the Cuban vol
unteer is ill-treated. The treatment is
not bad These fellows are well fed,
and receive 15d per day in coin. 1t is
the climate which kills them. Among
.he ranks of these men are found faces
and men of the worst and lowest GRIM
nal type-men who have enlisted simp'
y because they do not care curse
whether they live or die, because they
believe neither in God nor in love, but
)nly In the fifty dollars" men who,
he moment they can get into the hold
If some vessel bound for New
Orleans, escape to free State. But the
mass, the majority, of the Cuban volun-
eers are idle or unfortunate peasant
ads, who, spurred on by the scarcity OF
work and tempted by the promising
,ait Of $50 down, years service, and
Vt the end of that $50 more gratuity II
hey choose TO re-enlist, or a free pas 4
age home, give in their names and go
o Cuba, to be turned into inhuman and I
wicked brutes; to be hardened by gag
ng upon tortures and horrors which
would make their mothers blood ourdle !
md then, without any help of God or
nan, to 60 into the teeming, swamp !
reset military hospital and die. |: