The evening times., 1898-03-24

Chaos i'm the Island.
understand it. but a chaos of devastation
and depopulation of underlined duration,
whose end no man can see.
] VIII cite but few facts that came
under my personal observation. all tend
ing to fully substantiate the absolute
truth of the foregoing propositions. l
could detail incidents by the hour and by
the day. but the senator from Vermont
has absolutely covered the case. l have
no desire to deal in horrors. If / had my
way. I would shield the American public
even from the Photographic reproductions
Of the awful scenes that 1 viewed in all
their original ghastliness.
Spain has sent to Cuba more than 225,
O)0 soldiers to subdue the island. whose
entire male population capable of bearing
arms did not exceed at the beginning that
number. These soldiers were mostly
boys, conscripts from the Spanish hills.
| They are wei armed. but otherwise seem
to be absolutely unprovided for They
have been without tents and practically
without any Of the necessary supplies and
equipments for service in the field. They
have been put in barracks, in warehouses
and old buildings in the cities where all
sanitary surroundings have been of the
worst possible character. They have seen
hut little discipline, and could not ascer-
| tain that such a thing a drill had TAX
/ en- place in the island
There are less than $1,000 now avail
/ able for duty. The balance are dead or
sick in hospitals, or have been sent back
to Spain as incapacitated for further ser
vice. 1t is currently stated that there
are now $1,000 sick in hospital
10000 Americans Could Take CuLa
I do not believe that the entire Spanish
army in Cuba could stand an engagement
in the open field against 10000 well-dis-
cipined American soldiers.
As an instance of the discipline among
them ! cite the fact that / bought the
machete of a Spanish soldier on duty at
the wharf in Matanzas, on his offer, for
50 in Spanish silver. He also seemed
desirous of selling me his only remain
ing arm, a revolver.
The Spanish soldiers have not been
paid for some months. and in nv iudg-
ment they. of all the people on the
earth, will most gladly welcome any re-
suit which would permit them to re-
turn to their homes in Spain.
The pictures in the American news
papers of the starving reconcentrados
are true. They can all be duplicated by
the thousands. / never saw, and, please
God, / may never again see, so deplora-
BILE a sight as the reconcentrados in the
suburbs of MatanZas. | can never for
get to my dying day the hopeless an
guish in their despairing eyes. Hud-
died about their little bark huts, they
raised no voice of appeal to us for aims
as we went among them.
There was almost no begging by the
reconcentrados themselves The streets
Of the cities are fun of beggars of all
ages and all conditions but they are
almost wholly of the residents of the
/ cities. and largely of the professional
beggar class. The reconcentrados-men,
women and children-stand silent, fam
fishing with hunger. Their only appeal
comes from their sad eyes, through
which one looks as through an open win
dow into their agonizing souls
Deaths i'm Mafanxas
The present autonomist governor of
Matanzas (who speaks excellent Eng
lish) was inaugurated in November last.