The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1896-01-12
IN SPANISH DUNGEONS.
THE FATE OF CAPTURED CUBAN IN
sURGENTS.


dure-It Il said Spain's Prisons Are
the Worst ON Earth-Men Are seal
ed IN Tn Solitary Vaults and Die
Forgotten and Unnamed.
From the New Orleans Picayune.
The desperation Of the Cubans who are
fighting Spain for the liberty OF their is
land recites wonder at times in the Amer
lean mind, and some are inclined TO think
them too bloodthirsty in their system Of
warfare. II is true very little quarter
Is given the Spanish soldiery In any OF the
conflicts where the insurgents have the
upper hand. but there is a good, substan-
tial reason for this seeming heartless-
ness.
The soldiers Of the insurgent army know
that a fate blacker than death will be
their allotment if they fail The kingdom
OF Spain has never displayed a gentle
hand to its enemies. Dark echoes Of the
inquisitiOn permeate its treatment Of
malefactors. for as such the Cuban insur-
gents are regarded. The prison system
of Spain is more barbarous to-day than
that of either Turkey or Russia. and that
is saying a good deal
For more than a thousand years the
spaniards have made a study Of torture
handed from one generation to another
and elaborated upon by each, makes their
prisons the worst on earth. There are
men forgotten and unnamed rotting away
in the Spanish dungeons to-day, under
conditions more horrible than that pic
tured by Dickens in his Tale of Two
Cities in the character of the old doctor
confined in the bastile for twenty-five
years Men who took part in the prev
ious Cuban rebellion. nearly a generation
ago, may still be living in the dungeons.
Thirty years hence some of the men who
are now lighting so valiantly in Cuba
may be rotttng away in the same pest
holes. II is this prospect which makes
them desperate and biOOdthirsty, and
eager to accept a thousand risks to shake
off the torture which awaits them.
Each week patches OF Cuban suspects
are forwarded to Spain. To be "a suspect
is equivalent to being guilty and those
who 80 viii, in all probability never re-
turn. If wealthy planter is suspected
Of furnishing financial aid to the insur-
gents he Is pounced upon and shipped off
Infinitely better would have been his fate
had he Joined the insurgent army and
been killed on the field of battle.
The ordinary suspect is not executed.
but if he be proved guilty of treason the
garrote will speedily end his troubles
The garrote is the official form of capital
punishment in Spain.
Nearly all of the death sentences are
executed in the pradera de la Ysidro, in
Madrid. All executions are public, and
are usually held early in the morning.
The criminal is always mounted upon the
back of tiny Spanish donkey and goes
to the place of execution in a procession
which consists of citizens, priests and
soldiers.
Prior to leaving the prison in which the
condemned has been confined mass is
celebrated and the death sentence is read
TO the guilty wretch When the prisoner
reaches the place of execution, he mounts
scamold, black handkerchief is tied
over his face, and he is manacled to a
chair. Then around his neck is placed
the band OF the garrote. Two turns of a
powerful thumb-screw brushes the neck
OF the victim, and almost sewers the head
from the body.
Death is claimed to be absolutely in
stantanequs. After the execution the body
or the victim is allowed to remain for
! several hours in plain view of the crowds
which have seen the accomplishment of
looked upon by the lower Spaniard as
being excellent entertainment.
While torture has been nOminally abol-
ished, the prisons themselves, combined
with the system, are such that the agony
of the culprit is continuous and long-en-
during.
AS far as possible the Spanish govern
ment sends all of her greater criminals
to her great convict colonies in Africa, or
in the Canary, or Balearic Islands. In the
few towns which remain in Spain from
her once conquest of Northern Africa she
houses her desperate convicts. They are
hardly fitting relic of the once magnii-
I
largest penal colony of the kingdom is on
the two islands of the Baleares, situated
in the Mediterranean, near the coast of
are housed liks dogs in kennels. Day and
night they are forced to wear chains a
foot long, which are suspended from a
girdle.
They work in the cultivation of wheat,
] barley, yams, dates and figs, and in coffee
plantations; the result OF their labor be-
! ing shipped to Europe, when in African
4 colonies, and till the soil for its products
| equally in Canary and Balearic islands.
| The largest penal colony in the Canary
| which is sixty-three square leagues in di-
| mansions and has population of 5000,
nearly all being convicts.
Deportation to these penal colonies is
| made in the most shiftless and cruel man.
ner. From all parts of Spain the prisoners
| who are to be sent to the penal colonies
! Sladero, or detention prison, at Madrid
Then they are marched with insufficient
4 clothes and with absolutely no provision
| for food, to Valencia.
Here they are shipped to the colonies
in old Anticipated ships, which are over
! crowded to the verge of positive danger
Herded like cattle in pens, beaten by ig-
! norant and brutal soldiers, they go to a
| living death in the colonies, where stripes
| are given more often than food, and where
brutality is visited with the smiles of
superior officers No wonder that suicide
is the natural thought of the usual
! Spanish convict.
The political prisoner fares worse than
| the criminal guilty of assassination. The
/ latter is regarded merely as the enemy of
! the individual, while the former is re-
4 garded as the enemy of the king.
Most of the political prisoners are sent
| to Ceuta, Africa. Ceuta. is an old Moorish
! seaport town in Morocco, opposite Gil
braltar. The town is on the side of the
ancient mountain Abyla, which forms
| one of the pillars of Hercules, the rock
| of Gibraltar being the other 1t is al
most impregnable, and is to Spain what
/ Siberia is to Russia, with the exception
that it is even more horrible. The town
was built by the Moors about 945. and it
is probable that there is no other one
/ place in the world where so many devices
| of torture are concentrated
Ceuta is a very small place, and the
Moors constructed = chain of fortresses
around it to guard against any possible
/ attack 1t is in the cellars of these an
/ cient and decaying fortresses that the
dungeons are located. They are hewn
out of the solid rock, and are in tiers to a
/ depth of fifty or sixty feet. The approach
4 to them is made through narrow open
4 ings in the stone floors of the fortresses,
/ and when the horrible hole is opened the
| foul odor of filth and decomposition is
| overpowerng.
! The dungeons are inhabited almost sole
4 lv nv n