The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-02-21


 of the dying and order the burial of the dead, showed me the closet of med
 icine furnished by the United States. The difficulty Is to see that the right medicines are properly administered.
 One would think that every physician
 in Havana would gladly give portion
 of his time to this charitable work, but
 1t is said that only three or four have
 dared brave public opinion and the loss
 of their practice among the Spanish families. I am acquainted with two noble exceptions, undermined Medi- cos who, having some means of their own, have abandoned their general practice and devoted their time and strength. unrewarded. to the reconcen- trados. Just think of 1t! Upwards of
 100000 homeless and miserable wretch es in this unhappy island. In the pro- vince of Havana alone, excluding seve- ral towns which have not yet sent in their lists, there are 127,od0 of them | more than 14.000 being orphan children and 35,000 widowed and destitute wo- | men. In the adjoining provinces of Matanzas there are upwards of 94,OOO. | The mortality occasioned by hunger | and fever Is not known to certainty, | because every effort has been made to l hide 1t; it is calculated that forty per cent. in Havana and sixty per cent. in Pinar del Rio. Before aid from the 1 united States came 1t was as high as seventy per cent. right here in Hava- na under the eyes of the governor general. Guines is another scene of fearful mortality. It is little town, l with normal population of 5000. Af- 1 ter Weyler's concentration decree it | increased in 8 few days to 5000. Dur- l ing three weeks of April the deaths
 numbered 1,400. The old cemetery be- came so crowded that when the | trenches would hold no more new l burial ground had to be consecrated; and over its gate might have been in-
 scribed one universal epftaph: "Mur- dered by Don Valeriano Weyler, Mar 1 quis of Teneriffe."
 I More than 1000 have already died in l Guines; out of 5000 reconcentrados in 1 Jurneo 3,7oo are already dead; in, Ha- | vana in spite of all that is now being l done for them, they are still dying at I the rate of 1,600 a month. Not less 1 than 100000 must surely follow the 2O0- l 900 which the grave has claimed in this great charnel house. the fair island of l Cuba. These figures are not guess work; they are from statistics as care | fully compiled as the conditions will 1 allow, and are under rather than over l the mark Doctor Bruner, of the Ma rine hospital service fixes the number l of deaths from starvation, from the data he has gathered, at 3O0.OO0. The l asylums lately created, of which Los | Fosos is one, shelter upwards of 15,000
 reconcentrados, and through American l charity about 14,000 receive food in the | municipal city of Havana. Should this l bounty cease what would become of
 them? A few noble souls in Havana l are distributing this food, under the | direction of Consul General Lee, and l now that Clara Barton has arrived l things will be farther systematized. If l every community in the United States would immediately organize branch | Red Cross Aid society and secure what ] 1t could in money or clothing, what in- l ca1culable amount of suffering would 1 be relieved! If everybody of means would give but five or ten cents out of l his abundance, what might be hoped from the seventy million people in our | happy country!
 Having now no more money in our
 purses than the reconcentrados them-
 selves, we were obliged to walk to our
 hotel, more than two miles over these stony streets, every step of which makes one feel like penitente with | l.. 4,1,o UyoJ JJr ak sid | walks in Havana so narrow that two l cannot pass one another upon them! l In many places they are but few I inches wide, so that one, the size of N your correspondent, can barely walk
 abreast upon them, the narrow
 streets which one may almost reach
 across, filled from walk to walk with
 carts laundering over the stones each
 cart driven by a red-capped Spanish
 peasant and drawn by wonderfully
 bedizened donkey, with red tassels and
 jingling bells and brass-mounted
 leather all oyer him. Among the carts
 the carriages dash at such rate that
 one expects instant destruction,
 whether walking or riding. However,
 we reached the Pasaje with no damage
 but to our feet, which felt as if they
 had been bastinadoed, in time for
 breakfast,-the usual hour for that
 meal in these parts being from 11:3O to 1 D. m. After brief rest and a re-
 plenishing of the pocketbooks-for pill
 grims without scrip are of no account
 here-we drove to the Jacoba, another
 of Havana's temporary asylum's, down
 near the waters edge. In side street
 so narrow that one literally "could
 not swing cat" in 1t without bump
 ing its head on either wall, one car
 riage was stopped by a small crowd ot
 half a dozen men and boys grouped
 around what looked like bundle of
 dirty rags. What is the matter?"
 asked in my poor Spanish "Nada Nata," said a man, indifferently turn. ing away, "Solanente una pobra"- Nothing, nothing, only poor woman ,
 Why don't you take her up? Car
 nothing be done for her? was the next
 query "No, Senora," said another Ellauriendo-she is dying. Quickly
 getting out of the coach, we stopped
 beside her. She was black and old an6
 shrivelled, with thin gray hair partial. ly bound under a blood-stained ban. dage. Whether she was reconcen.