The herald., 1898-07-23
A QUESTION Of HOURS
THE FALL OF MANILA CERTAIN
IN A SHORT TIME
An English Officer Sums Up the Situa'
tion-Americans and Insurgents
Vs.. Closing In on the City

MANILA. June 29.-(Correspondence of
the Associated Press). The British gunboat
Swift arrived here few days ago from
Hong Kong with mails, which 1t was
thought the American naval commander,
Rear Admiral Dewey. might not sea his
way to pass for fear Of technical breach
of the blockade. but he made no objection.
So all the mails went ashore. and bless
ing they were to the poor blockaded Man
liza residents. There are business firms
with immense interests at stake. all de-
pending on mail advices. now that the
telegraph cables are cut. For few days
the Iloilo cable was used, messages being
forwarded thence by boat to Labuan, but
that did not last long, for the Americans
found out that the Spanisrds were COM
municating with their home government
on war matters and SO they stopped 1t.
The last message said that a squadron of
four armored cruisers, accompanied by
coal ships and conveying torpedo boats and
troop ships with $4,000 soldiers on board
had left Spain for the Philippines.
Admiral Dewey has been most courteous
and obliging. He readily gave permission
to visit the arsenal at Cavite, where how
ever there Is nothing to be seen of interest.
Cavite is on a low, sandy spot, about eight
miles from Manila as the crow flies, but
nearly thirty miles by road, as there Is
broad bay intervening and the shores are
swampy for some distance inland. The
Cavite peninsula points in the direction OF
Manila and is Joined to the mainland by
low, narrow isthmus where In last years
rebellion two bodies of Spanish troops met
and mistook each other for rebels and
practically annihilated each other, over a
thousand of the soldiers losing their lives
through the blunder. At the end OF the
peninsula are two points-a large one out
side named Sangley and a samller one.
Cavite proper, on the inner side, jutting
out between the upper and lower parts of
Cavite Bay.
On Sangley point Is the slip-way for re-
pairing ships, and a small battery Of two
Krupp 15-centimeter guns. At Cavite ar
senal several of the oldest type of Arm
strong Misunderstanding six-inch guns are
mounted, apparently for ornament, with
symmetrical mounds Of round shot along
side. In the arsenal enclosure are build
ings Of the usual sort, machine sheds, am
munition, stores, etc. The engine shop is
kept in good order by the Americans. 1t
Is small but useful. The machinery mostly
bears the names of English makers and
has been maintained In satisfactory
state of repair. All the rest-magaZines,
officers quarters, hospital and barracks
had been looted, first by the Spaniards,
then by the rebels. Here and there the
buildings show great shot hole but there
was little Smelling of the place.
The Spanish ships In the bay. however,
tell a pitiful and terrible tale. The poor
old Castillo is the worst, though she shows
the least, for she Is now almost entirely
submerged. She was a wooden cruiser
and all her woodwork burned to the waters
edge, leaving only the metal skeleton, the
ribs and frames, tunnels, ventilators and
hoists and gun shields, battered, perfora-
ted in a thousand spots. and hammered
and twisted out of position and almost out
of recognition. She Is a wonderful testi-
mony to the destructiveness OF modern
weapons we'll handled. 1t is the most
shocking object lesson that the friends OF
peace could possibly adduce-to picture
number of men and boys cooped up for
two days on floating mark to be shot to
pieces with large and small projectifes,
mangling, mutilating and numbering mer-
cilessly.
The Castillo was SO old that when she
had perforce to venture out of Manila Bay
to go thirty miles to Subig. the working of
the propeller shaft in the tubs started the
timbers and she leaked too fast for the
pumps to keep her floating. She had to be
beached gently at Subig till the timbers
could be patched up with cement. When
her guns were fired she again started to
fill with water. 1t was an enormity,
crime. even to put such vessel in the
fighting line. To make men fight in such
a coffin ship was simply diabolical
The Reina Cristina is less submerged, less
burned, but shows more battering. OF her
bridge only the starboard supports and
foot or two of the bridge itself remain, the
rest evidently being blown into atoms by
shell which went on and struck the funnel
near the base and apparently exploded in
side. causing dreadful havoc tn the engine
room.
It is thought that unless peace is signed
without further delay Manila Is a doomed
city. for the insurgents are closing in rap
idly, and the city could no more survive a
big battle than house of cards could with
stand a typhoon. Here is rich seaport,
a metropolis almost as large as Liverpool;
the majority of the buildings are of a highly
inflammable type, fires are frequent In ordi-
nary times, and a little Smelling would burn
the whole city to the ground. Here is
population Of a quarter of million full
blooded Malays, ordinarily indolent but in
tensely exciteable on occasions, and capa-
BILE of anything, such as the storming of the
city by their kinsmen under the insurgent
flag. Neither the place nor the people can
20 through a week Of what Paris had to
endure for six weeks. Yet the Spaniards
are as desperately unyieldng as the French
were in 1870, as confident in their unavail-
Ing valor, as ignorant of the irresistible
forces they defy.
Every day and all day there is an exo-
dus from the city stimulated every few days
by some new scare. Large. clumsy river