The San Francisco call., 1896-10-20
BUTCHER WEYLER
HAS |MITATORS
Spanish Generals Who Put
ALI Prisoners Promptly
to Death.
Women and Children Not Spared
by the Relentless Foes of
Cuba.
INSURGENTS SHOW HUMANITY
Consul.General Lee Granted Leave
of Absence, but 1t Has No
Significance.

HAVANA, CUBA, Oct. 19-To show the
contrast between treatment accorded to
rebel prisoners by the Spaniards and that
shown to Spanish captiyes by the insur-
gent leaders the following recent incidents
are mentioned:
In the fight which General Melquizo had
with General Maceo's forces short time
ago Melquizo captured forty rebels, whom
he ordered shot on the spot, and in the
recent engagement between Maceo's troops
and the Spaniards under General Bernal
the latter caused twenty-five prisoners to
be shot, including a young girl and two
older women. Bernal says that he saw
one of these women hidden in the brush
near by and he paid no attention to her at
first, believing she was refugee, but after
the fight was over stray shot picked oil
one of his soldiers, when they all turned
on her, she killing seventeen before she
was captured and killed.
This statement is positively true as the
facts were heard from the lips of General
Bernal IL person when he was inter
viewed on his arrival in Havana, and he
confessed them without shame to all the re-
porters who silently listened to his ''e&-
ploits.''
With the forty men killed by Melquizo
there were four women and a child, but
he does not know whether the child was
abandoned in the woods or killed. They
tried to force the women to tell them the
whereabouts of Maceo and his plans, but
the only words they got out of them were
that the Spaniards were cowardly dogs,
and this so enraged Melquizo that he or
dered them shot, they all dying with the
cry of viva Cuba Libre."
This affair and that of Bernal shooting
twenty-five captives clearly show how the
Spaniards continue their relentless butch
cry and do not pardon a single man cap
tured in the field, while the Cubans pur-
sue an exactly contrary course.
The new trial of the men captured on
the flibustering schooner Competitor
began to-day before an ordinary naval
court martial, Alfredo La Borde of New
Orleans, the leader of the party, and Owen
Milton of Kansas being examined. Their
evidence did not materially differ from
that given at the previous trial, which re-
suited in the death sentence being i'm
posed on the five prisoners, who, in addi-
ton to La Borde and Milton, are William
Theodore Maza, both Cubans.
Consul Lee was not present, he
not having been advised that the trial
would begin to-day. The case OF Leavitt
and Barnett was not called.
MADRID, SPAIN. Oct. ia dispatch
from Havana says that in a recent en-
gagement the rebel chiefs. Lett Vidal,
Jarapa and Escotta, were killed. Maceo's
ad djutant was also killed.
WASHINGTON, D. c., Oct. 19.-Con-
sul-General Fitzhugh Lee has been
granted leave of absence from his post
in Havana and will return to his
home in November. As the result OF
the return all sorts of Cuban rumors
have been prevalent, but il is as
serted tonight by an official of the State
Department that such references are not
justified. 1t is said that General Lee re-
turns TO the United States solely on ac-
count of his health, and that he will go
back to his post as soon as he recuperates
from the effect of his residence In the
island. 1t is denied that there is any po-
litical significance in his being granted
leave of absence at this time.
SAVANNAH, GA, Oct. 19.-The fiIibus-
teriDg steamer Three Friends, which has
been ostensibly looking for wrecks, es-
capped the revenue cutter Morrill,, which
has been following her since she left Will
mineton, somewhere off Tybee, last night.
The Morrill, lost track of her. and, not see
ing her anywhere this morning, came into
port here for coal.