The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-03-16
A FAMOUS CUBAN BANDIT
4 DARE DEVIL CAREER ENDED BY
 4 BULLET.

NarclaJ w nose Grimes were Puhefoub-
 A Desperado's End.
 When Dr. Axtelle and Jean Jacques,
 of Waterbury, were at Matanzas, Gar
 cia, the famous Cuban bandit who
 could give points t6 Bill Cook, was shot
 and killed near neighboring village.
 Dr. Axtelle became greatly interested
 in the career of the remarkable fellow
 and he has prepared the appended very
 interesting sketch:
 On February 18th Manuel Garcia was
 shot by one of his comrades in the
 mountains near the village of Seboru-
 cal, which is not far from Matanzas.
 He was about thirty-two years old at
 the time of his death and had lived the
 life of bandit for the last ten years,
 carrying terror into all parts of Cuba,
 both city and country. Any one was
 liable to be selected as his victim and
 all dreaded him.
 As boy he lived in the village of
 Quivican, about twenty miles from Ha-
 vana, with his mother and younger
 brother Vicente, who were both honest
 and industrious From a boy, however,
 Manuel manifested a strong tendency
 to thieving of a sly and petty kind, so
 much so that the Cubans applied to him
 the name "cautrero," which means petty or mean thief. His crimes at that
 time consisted of stealing pig, chick
 en, old horse, etc, and selling them In order to get money, for which he al ways manifested great fondness. This continued for about two years, when he stole and sold a. horse, for which he was arrested by the civil guard (guarda civiD.
 Just here it is necessary to define the meaning of the term, civil guard. They are the best men picked from the ranks of the military on account of their hon. esty and efficiency, and their function is to perform police duty in the interior Two or three civil guards arrested him for stealing and selling the horse, and on the way to prison he made himself so agreeable that he succeeded in put ting them off their guard, when he sud denly snatched the sword from one, killing him and wounding the other. He then, with one companion, fled to the mountains and for the first time commenced the career of g bandit.
 For the first year his depredattons consisted of robbing on the highway and stealing He made no pretentions to secrecy, but would boldly ride up to a farm house. order them to get him something to eat, change his jaded horse for the best he could find, take anything else he wanted and ride away During this year his mother and broth- 1 CT Vicente were greatly annoyed and | insulted both by neighbors and the civil l guard by frequently reminded that one | was the mother and the other the | brother of a bandit robber. Theyinflict- | ed various kinds of punishment on Vii cente in order to extort rom him infor nation of the whereabouts of his broth CT. On one. occasion they were unusu- ally severe and he became so much in censed that he fought with them, wounding one or two. After this he fled to his brother and joined him as bandit. They were later joined by a large mulatto, Plasencia, and man named La Muerte, and still later by one other, making six in all. His party never, until very recently as my story will tell later, consisted of more than one or two more than this. They now, for the first time, commenced to kidnap, and to levy tributes and ransons.
 He named himself King of the Gu ban Country and defied the authori- ties. As many as seventy-five hundred of the regular army troops have been after him at the same time, but he nev- CT was taken Their rendezvous was always in mountains and swamps, where they could not safely be followed, and they almost always avoided the main highways so that they might not encounter the guard. For arms they used the best of Winchester rifles, re- volvers and kind of knife called ma chete."
 Their manner of levying tribute was this: Garcia would write letter to his victim, telling him that if a certain sum of money were not paid to him by a. certain time, he would either be kid mapped or his buildings or canefelds burned. He also instructed the man that if he acceded to his demand he should reply by letter sent to a place where his messenger would find a man carrying a rooster, or one with red handkerchief around his neck, or one who tipped his hat twice, etc., and to the man answering the particular de- scription in any case the letter was to be given.
 If the person agreed in his letter to nav the sum named, then he sent him another letter instructing him to depos- it the money in certain hollow tree or any other place he might name, but { never received it in person. S
 He never fully trusted any of his par ty but his brother Vicente. He and Vi- cente never slept with the remainder of | the gang, but always slept at least l mile distant, no one of the party know Ing where they were and one of them always standing on guard while the other slept.
 Early in his career as a bandit he 1 I adopted Rosario Vazquez of his native f town, Quivican, as his mistress, and she acted as a spy and informer for him ever since. He made his elandes- l tine visits to her at irregular intervals, c and the government finding this out f several years ago, she was exiled to the Isle o6. Pines, in the Caribbean sea, for two years f Until three~Xears ago he would come o .o Havana disguised as 8 fruit orchick- Y ,n vender, and would>even go to the the z 7ter. In this way he gained much of |