Semi=weekly graphic., 1895-12-28

ment of Tax on Cattle Bound For Ha-
 vana--Mines of Dynamite Touched on by
 Electricity.
 Ipnacio Agramonte, son of the cele- brated Cuban general killed in the Inst war. secretary of the Nuevitas and Pu- erto Principe railroad, in letter to relative in New York describes the re- cent train wreck aS El Lugareno, caused by insurgent dynamite.
 "We left Puerto Principe on the morning of tho 26th, " he says. "Our train was preceded few minutes by locomotive, thoroughly protected with iron sheets and with strong guard on board. This locomotive, No. 6, was in charge of Manuel dc la Tore, the engi- neer. Our train was drawn by the loco motive Centenario, which was tho new est and most perfect belonging to the company Francisco Bejarano y Rod riguez was tho engineer ill charge, with N. Artila and ]. Rubio as flremen. We had a mixed train--ten cattle cars, six cars of general cargo, third, second and first class coach, and all iron car ill which there were about 20 soldiers.
 ''Las Minas was passed and the train was approaching tho station of El Lu- gareno The latter is q pretty little place dotted with sugar houses and the residences of men employed on the plan tation. Thick woods of oak, palms and other trees extend for some little dis tance along tho side of the track at this point and for several miles back, form ing n seenre place from which to attack and a safe retreat. The advance locomo- tive passed the bridge known as No. 12. Our train approached and passed in safe ty. Suddenly we heard rifle shot, fol- lowed almost immediately by deafen- ing report ,no next instant VIC were all in tumble. I was thrown violently against the forward end of the car. My wife and mother, who were with me, were thrown ill the opposite direction. The crashing of iron and timbers, the believing of cattle, and the general con- fusion which followed cannot easily be described We knew at once that insur- gents had blown up the train and thought all attack might follow. Every one remained motionless for an instant, awaiting the expected shower of bullets, but none came.
 ''I rushed from our car, with difficult ty managed to get to the ground, and there beheld a wreck such as I had never seen before. Rails were twisted as though they were ribbons, torn from the sleepers, and absolutely tied into dyna- mite knots. The locomotive had been hurled 90 feet to one side, useless mass of iron. Of the tender nothing was left but pile of coal, wood. chains and bars. The 12 cattle cars were smashed into kindlina. the wheels were wrenehed from the axles, and scattered in every direction. Cattle, dead and dying, were strewn along the road for 100 feet. From midst the tangled mass of iron which had formed the tender we ex- tracted tho two flremen One had an arm and leg missing, with head and body badly bruised. The other was al- most separated piece from piece, while our engineer was nnrecognizable His head was nearly severed from his body, and both arms were gone. The brake man, who was ill one of the cattle cars, was thrown 80 feet ill the air, alighting in lot of cattle, thus partially break ing his fall. He sustained fracture of the skull and had one arm broken.
 As l jumped from the train saw beneath clump of trees group of about 19 men armed with rifles and machetes. They looked at their work for q moment, and then at signal from their leader disappeared ill tho woods. The Spanish troops in the meantime re- mained in the iron car, expecting the attack which did not follow I immedi- ately telegraphed for assistance and a wrecking train from Nuevitas to repair the track. Almost all of the cattle were killed outright or injured to such an ex- tent that 1t was necessary to end their misery. Every car except the first class coach and the iron car of the soldiers was badly damaged. The third class coach was, like the cattle cars, totally demolished The second class car was damned into ours, and ours was perched half way up on the roof of the iron car.
 On review we found that my wife had sustained an injury in the side of the jaw, my sister was more or less bruis- ed, and l had a sprained wrist My AhotssSA SoSoEO0 OAtu 0 1SM SGTatcHcS OH the arm. Most of the passengers were pretty badly shaken up.
 Upon examination we found that the insurgents had cut little path from the edge of the woods to the track and had there between the ties buried dynamite torpedo, connecting it with a wire to the electric battery in their re- treat. They allowed the first locomotive to pass in safety, but as soon as the sec ond was over the torpedo they touched the button of the electric instrument. and dynamite did the rest. Every at tempt to ship cattle over the road to- ward Havana without paying tax to the insurgent government meets with a similar result. Troops came at once from outlying districts and started in pursuit of the insurgents, but you might as well look for needles in haystack as try to find those men when they skin into the woods.
 So far our road has lost three en- zines out of total of nine and has had | any number of cars smashed into kin ding wood. Until the present disaster I | had no idea of the destructive force of | dynamite. We escaped miraculously, |