The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-05-16

Key West, Fla, May 15-(Copyright-
ed, 1898, by the Associated Press 1.-The
conditions in Havana. resulting from
the blockade are being gradually
brought out by information obtained
from fishing smacks and other small
vessels captured off the coast.
Affairs at Havana now appear to be
worse than at any time since the
Weyler regime. The fishermen, who at
first braved the blockade for the high
price which fish brought in Havana,
now run the risk. not for money, but
for food. A number of these have been
captured by the vessels of the block
aiding fleet, nearly all of them being
released after having been questioned
by our officers. They all unite in
picturing the state of things at Havana
as being pitiful in the extreme.
The Associated Press dispatch boat
Kate Spencer has accumulated all the
facts obtainable along the blockading
line. the latest news being obtained
through two captures made by the
United States gunboat Machias which
has just returned here for the first
time since the blockade opened, max
ing the longest single service of any
blockading vessel off Cuba.
The Machias caught two fishing
boats off Havana, just before her re-
turn here. The Americans offered the
fishermen money for part of their
catch, as the fish were needed on
board, but the fishermen demurred at
taking money, they preferring to have
bread and adding that they were
desperately hungry.
When questioned as to the prevalence
of yellow fever at Havana, the fisher
men said there was little sickness at
the Cuban capital, but they added
there was much starvation. The re-
concentrates, they said, are nearly all
dead, or have been expelled from the
city, to die in the suburbs. This agrees
with other reports from Havana. and
Matanzas, to the effect that the Span
ish authorities on the departure OF the
American consul seized all the relief
supplies and applied them to the uses
of the army. The SpaniardS then drove
the reconcentrados into the desolated
sections of the country between the
coast towns and the insurgent lines,
the regions described by Senator
Proctor and others as being too barren
and desolate to support grasShoppers.
The insurgents themselves have been
chary of receiving freconcentrados, and
hundreds of the latter who had no per-
sonal friends in the insurgent camps
had been left to starve between the
lines, which they did.
About Havana the situation is even
worse Hundreds of reconcentrados
from Los Fosos, the big reconcentrados
barracks in Havana, were too weak to
walk out of town and fell in the
streets or died in the suburbs, where
fiocks of vultures, "Weyler's chickens"
as they are now termed in Havana,
have Toasted on the remains.
In Matanzas this feature of the sit
uation is equally distressing. The fish
ermen who have been brought here are
soon reconciled to capture, which
means food and decent treatment. They
say that if the blockade continues
much longer, bread riots must follow
in all the large towns, as food is re-
served exclusively for the army, thus
forcing many people to enlist who
would not otherwise do so. Finally,
the fishermen say that certain of the
most desperate of the Spaniards threat
en- to burn Havana or blow the city up
in the event of the authorities deciding
to capitulate to the American forces.