The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-30
LIFE IN SANTIAGO DE CUBA
HAPPENINGS IN THE NURSES
 HOUSE.
The Hospital and Red Cross Headquar- ters-Miss Barton's Cure for the Pest of VermiM.

of Vermin.
 Special Correspondence of the Jour
 nal and Courier0
 Santiago, Sept. Ave are not exact- ly taking boarders" in the Nurses Home, but our family has lately been augmented by two young soldiers. It came about in this way: One day a Michigan corporal came to beg us to take into our house the captain and lieutenant of his company. He said they were both very sick out in the camp where they were lying on the ground under leaky ''pup-tents," with no attendance but such as he was able to give them in his hours off duty With tears in his eyes he added that besides their bodily ailments, which were serious enough, both the officers were so homesick and Respondent that unless some change came speedily they would surely die. If we would only give them shelter and the atmosphere of home for a week or two, he would see that rations and a cook were fur l nished and a man detailed to take care of the invalids when he, himself was on duty.
 such case? The whole upper floor of our big casa, with it's several airy chambers, was unoccupied, as the nine teen nurses preferred to sleep below, 1 barrack fashion, close together. Every instinct of kindness prompted the | granting of the request. But we re- | flected that hundreds of other men were sick unto death in the camps, un- | able to get into the crowded hospitals. It would never do to turn the Nurses | Home into an asylum for sick soldiers; 1 would it be wise to set up a precedent l by taking in these? Fortunately for | the feelings of all concerned, it hap pened that two convalescents were about to be discharged from the water | side hospital.
 l The captain and lieutenant were at | once established in the vacated cots 1 and made so comfortable under Miss | Wheeler's gentle ministrations that both mended rapidly and in due course were discharged to make room for oth- CTS. This incident led to two things-a 1 pleasant acquaintance with the young ;.r,, ,,l n1 ISct fNet "A tr ( i not yet twenty-four) and an unquiet conscience concerning those spacious chambers of ours-going to waste, so to | say-while Uncle Samuefs boys in the i pestilentnal camps were lying on the wet ground and dying for lack o1 comforts Therefore we lent a readiei ear when the little corporal came witt another tale of woe. This time ht l wanted shelter for his particular friend and chum, whose story was as follows. The boy was only twenty and the possessor of a fortune so large that it's income amounted to abou four hundred dollars a month. Wher the call for volunteers came he was travelling with his mother and sisters in Europe, and came home to enlist as a private He carried himself wei through the fight, escaped without z scratch and nobody ever heard hin complain of the hardships of cam paigning. Afterwards, during weeks Q id1eness in the dreary camp, three mile: from Santiago, he came into town ont day without the formality of a pass Of course this was contrary to rule but is done every day by hundreds ot soldiers and nothing is said about it Unfortunately an officer of the compa ny-a grocery clerk from the same Michigan town--cherished grudg' against the youthful millionaire, bori of jealousy because of the latter's supe rior position at home. The officer say his pet aversion" out without a pas and had him arrested. The penalty in flicted was severe one, under thu circumStanees-to work two weeks witt the gang who were cleaning the streets of Santiago. The cleaning brigade i mostly made up of the off-scourings O the country-negroes Chinese and Gu bans, sneak thieves from the 5ails ant criminals of all degrees and colors The poor fellow began his punishmen bravely enough, but the shame of it the horrible stenches of the gutter
 and the coarse prison fare soon mad
 him i'll. His hands, unused to labor became a mass of blisters, and working in the heat of the day brought on fe yer.
 peculiarity of the local calentura i
 that it ''goes to the head" particular,
 when the patient is exposed to tn
 noon- day sun. The officer, however
 declared that the boy was only sham ing or drunk, and ordered him to tn
 guard-house. There he lay severa
 days, alternately shivering with chill
 and scorched by fever, without food 0 medicine; and there he would probabl
 have died had not his friend, the littl
 corporal, sought him out and interest
 ed some higher power in his behalf
 When the sufferer was released hi
 wits seemed hopelessly gone. Hi friend nursed him as best he could ou in camp, and after the fever subside
 reason in a measure returned. Blu now the poor fellow brooded upon hi
 disgrace and the dreaded maj de pia
 (homesickness), which has killed man
 a brave man, was so strong upon hir
 that he sank into a state of melanchol more dangerous to "a mind diseased than the passing delirium of fever } The little corporal himself looked lik
 death, between the care of the sick a
 night and doing regular duty by day
 He is a slender lad ''of age" who left