Arizona republican., 1898-05-02
STAINS IGNORANT MEN.
Her Soldiers in Cuba Depleted in
 Number and Brain.

Her Soldiers in Cuba Depleted in
 Number and Brain.
 Washington, April 2S.-The war de- partment has full confidential reports of the numbers and efficiency of the Spanish army in Cuba. The latest re- ports date from December, 1897, and are as follows: There are fifty-six battalions of infantry in Cuba with an effective force on paper Of 1,O0O men to each battalion. There are fifty-six second battalions of 1000 each, rank and file. Besides these battalions there are twelve rife regi- ments, each having on paper 1,2OO men. There is also a railway regi- ment of 1,040 men and a telegraph battalion of 1,272 men. These two last named regiments have been kept busy in repairing and maintaining the railways and telegraph lines and de- lending them from Cuban attacks. Notwithstanding these forces are kept constantly in the field, the rail- ways and telegraphic lines are con- stantly broken and communications are everywhere uncertain and have been interrupted within five leagues of Havana.
 The rife regiments in Cuba are armed with the German pattern of Mauser rifles. This is 31 caliber arm, capable of very ra.,id fire in the hands oI expert soldiers, but the Spanish private soldier is the worst shot in Europe. They have no regu- lar small arm training in fire tactics and as most of them never saw any kind of arm previous to their draft into the army, they are slow at learn nig the manipulation of the delicate machinery of the modern small bore military rife. The greater portion Of these troops, however, carry the Amer ican Remington rife of 43 caliber, fitted with a bayonet. It is an excel lent arm of it's kind and was made at the Remington works, Ilion, N. Y, quarter of a century ago.
 General Lee and Capt. Walter B. Baker, consul at Sagua la Grande, who, during the late war, was a staff officer of the confederate general, Jo- seph R. Davis of Mississippi, both say that even in the militia days of the first three months of the late war, they never saw such absolute ignor- ance of evrything military as is dis played by these so-called veteran troops" of Spain on the island of Cuba. Though there is, on paper force of 13O,000 men, the effective is scarcely one-half of this number. The rank and file is so woefully ignorant that great difficulty is had to find men with sufficient education to act ds ron-commissioned officers.
 The death rate in even the rife regiments, the best troops Spain has, is over 30 per cent, owing to bad food. poor clothing and barracks, in which the most obvious sanitary regulations are absolutely disregarded. The con- dition of the mems barracks invites yellow fever, which fiourishes where filth is greatest, and it is small won der that the sons of peasants from the mountains of Spain die like sheep in yellow fever breeding barracks of Gu ban 1owlands. Both General Lee and Captain Baker have been through the yellow fever seasons of Cuba and never felt the slightest uneasiness.
 There is much talk abroad nowa- days about the terrors of the rainy season. in Cuba. Its dangers are vastly overrated. Captain Baker has been in Cuba four years, and he says he has never seen but one "rainy sea son. in all that time, and It was no more to be feared than a tropical eli mate usually is at any time. General Lee corroborates this, and declares that ten miles away from the badly kept sea coast towns, Cuba is as healthy as any country south of the Potomac or Ohio. If men will eat sparingly of tropical friuts, keep out of the dew as far as possible, let spirits alone and live decently neither the rainy or any other season in Cuba need have terrors for them. This same bete noir was abroad during the late war. and when General Butler took 15,OOO green Yankees from the New England mountains to New Or leans in April and May. 1862, it was said they would die like flies. But they did not die at all. The death rate was less in that department than anywhere in the south. So it will be, it is said, with regard to Cuba.
 AN INCIDENT OF THE WAR